The butt ugly economic/geo political article of the day.

[hippiehillbilly]

I am a news junkie and as such scour the web daily for headlines.
this is where i will post the most doom and gloom article i find each day. i hope youll join me daily for a "holy shit are we fucked" moment.. :D
(i reserve the right to post more than one article a day:p)

todays pick for me is,


http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/01/global-crisis-destroys-40-of-world.html
Global Crisis Destroys 40% of World Wealth; Bailout to Hit $4 Trillion (http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/01/global-crisis-destroys-40-of-world.html)



The world Economic Forum is reporting Global crisis 'has destroyed 40pc of world wealth' (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/davos/4374492/WEF-2009-Global-crisis-has-destroyed-40pc-of-world-wealth.html)The past five quarters have seen 40pc of the world's wealth destroyed and business leaders expect the global economic crisis can only get worse.

Steve Schwarzman, chairman of private equity giant Blackstone, said an "almost incomprehensible" amount of cash had evaporated since the financial crisis took hold.

"Business will be very different," he added.

His comments came on a day of the World Economic Forum characterised by the gloom of its participants and warnings that the crisis will endure for some time. News Corp chief executive Rupert Murdoch kicked off the meetings by warning that the atmosphere was worsening – despite global economic confidence plumbing the lowest depths on record.

"The crisis is getting worse," he said. "It's going to take drastic action to turn it around, if it can be turned around, quickly. I believe it will take a long time." Indeed, business will be very different. This is the back side of Peak Credit (http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2008/06/peak-credit.html) and its twin sister Peak Earnings (http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2008/11/peak-earnings.html).

Inflationists simply do not understand the destruction of bank credit accompanying in conjunction with the decline in asset prices. Nor do they understand the changing attitudes towards debt. This is a once in every 3-4 generational occurrence. Hardly anyone alive has experienced anything but inflation all their lives until about a year or so ago. A rude awakening is at hand.

Pimco Says U.S. Must Buoy Asset Prices for Recovery

Oce again Bill Gross misses the mark by a mile. Please consider Pimco Says U.S. Must Buoy Asset Prices for Recovery (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aWAKczzeiVRg&refer=home).Policy makers must stop declines in asset prices to revive the U.S. economy in 2010 and curb rising unemployment, according to Bill Gross, co-chief investment officer of Pacific Investment Management Co., the world’s biggest bond fund.

“You can’t bail out everyone, yet economic recovery is not possible unless certain critical asset sectors are not only reliquefied but rejuvenated in price,” Gross wrote in his February investment outlook posted today on the firm’s Web site. “An economic recovery is dependent upon commercial real estate prices stabilizing and more retail stores staying open for business in the months and years ahead.”

Policy makers should purchase municipal bonds, commercial mortgage-backed securities and investment-grade corporate bonds as a “necessary step towards eventual economic revival,” Gross wrote.It is impossible for government to stop the decline of asset prices except by owning every one of them. Prices will fall to their natural level regardless of intervention.

What Gross is essentially asking for is for the government to guarantee above market prices for the assets PIMCO owns.

Darling Lines Up The Tools

On the other side of the Atlantic Darling Gives BOE Authority on Asset Purchase Fund (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=abJHN7ijJB9g&refer=home)The U.K. government gave the central bank authority to spend 50 billion pounds ($71 billion) on bonds and commercial paper and paved the way for the central bank to lift money supply as interest rates keep falling.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling directed Bank of England Governor Mervyn King to buy investment-grade securities as a way of unfreezing financial markets. The bank’s Monetary Policy Committee also will consider using the fund to stimulate the economy, though it will need permission to act.

Britain’s recession is deepening as banks ration credit, shrugging off seven cuts in the central bank’s borrowing costs. The policy, set out in letters between the central bank and the Treasury, marks a first step toward so-called quantitative easing, where governments increase the money supply to reduce its cost and prevent a downward spiral in the economy.

“They’re getting all the tools lined up,” said Matthew Sharratt, an economist at Bank of America Corp. in London. “All you need to do is stop the sterilizations to increase money supply. The mechanics are being set up to move into quantitative-easing proper. It is a rising probability they may be forced into further down the line.” As I commented in Fed Adopts "Throw The Kitchen Sink" Policy (http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/01/fed-adopts-throw-kitchen-sink-policy.html)Flooding the market with words and throwing the kitchen sink at the problem will not stop the impending wave of failures. In cases of tools vs. tsunamis, the tsunami will win every time.And after the kitchen sink, it's straight down the drain thereafter.

The Ever Rising Cost Of The Bailout

Does anyone remember when the cost of the bailout was supposed to be $500 billion? Then $1 trillion? Then $2 trillion, then a whopping leap to $3.6 trillion. It's time top up the taxpayer ante once again.

Fortune Magazine is reporting Bank bailout could cost $4 trillion (http://money.cnn.com/2009/01/27/news/bigger.bailout.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2009012704)Banks don't have enough capital to fix their problems, which means the Obama administration may need a lot more money to clean up the financial mess.

The cost of the bank bailout is likely to be much higher than $700 billion.

While the Obama administration hasn't asked Congress for more money yet, some experts warn that government spending on support for struggling financial services companies will ultimately reach into the trillions of dollars.

"The amount of working capital you'd expect the government to take into this would be around $3 trillion to $4 trillion," said Simon Johnson, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and author of its Baseline Scenario (http://baselinescenario.com/) financial crisis blog.

But calls for a comprehensive response from the government have increased in recent weeks following the free fall of bank stocks.

The KBW Bank index has dropped 35% in January after a 50% plunge in 2008, as investors worry that the government may be forced to nationalize some banks -- and wipe out shareholders in the process. Shares of Citigroup (C) and Bank of America (BAC) have been particularly hard hit.

"The big banks are a hope trade right now," Johnson said.

Johnson said the government could get warrants in banks receiving assistance that would convert to common shares once the government sells them. He also said the government could hire private equity managers to oversee the assets the government takes on -- and sell them when the time is right.

These arrangements, he said, should allow the Treasury to extract some gains for taxpayers when the economic free fall ends and the banking system starts to recover.

Some observers believe asset values are so depressed right now that as long as the government has a well designed plan that restores investor confidence, taxpayers should profit from the financial bailout

"I think we have seen prices fall to a point where the government could very easily make money, though I'd be very happy if we end up breaking even," says Gary Hager, president of Integrated Wealth Management in Edison , N.J. I am sorry, there simply is no hope for the "Hope Trade". Citigroup, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, etc are gigantic black holes that will suck in every dollar available. All taxpayers will get, if anything, are a few quarks that escape.

Colin Barr, senior writer for the story goes on to say "If the history of previous banking system rescues is any guide though, there's also a good chance that removing toxic assets from bank balance sheets could leave taxpayers with a significant tab."

Had Barr written "near certainty" instead of "good chance" and I would have rung the bell and given him a cigar.

And in talking about a possible RTC style bailout, Barr concludes "But whatever method the aggregator bank uses, it could mean significantly higher startup costs than the RTC had. So expect to see the Obama administration coming back to Congress for more money...soon."

Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner. I am ringing the bell for Barr's final conclusion. That unfortunately, is the sad state of affairs.

Murray Rothbard vs. Tim Geithner

Inquiring minds are considering a 1984 classic by Murray Rothbard entitled Wall Street, Banks, and American Foreign Policy (http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard66.html).Commercial bankers, engaged as they are in unsound fractional reserve credit, are, in the free market, always teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Hence they are always reaching for government aid and bailout.My friend "BC" just pinged me with ... The banksters hold the marked cards, the politicians are the dealer, and the taxpayers are the patsy in this game. Of course the banks are not just 'teetering' anymore. They have actually gone bankrupt.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
(http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/)

[hippiehillbilly]

http://freedomarizona.wordpress.com/...-in-2009-2010/ (http://freedomarizona.wordpress.com/2009/01/30/46-of-50-states-could-file-bankruptcy-in-2009-2010/)

Freedom Arizona
46 Of 50 States Could File Bankruptcy In 2009-2010

There is a high chance a majority of the States within the United States of America could file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy. There are currently 46 states with high budget deficits, Arizona being one of them.

http://www.cbpp.org/9-8-08sfp-f1.jpg

In fact, Jan Brewer (http://www.governor.state.az.us/), the newly appointed Governor of Arizona has a major crisis on her hands, one that Arizona and national media isn’t covering. The alarming news is the State of Arizona has 90 to 120 days before they completely run out of money. After that, all bills and tax refunds owed to the citizens will go unpaid.


Before Janet Napolitano (http://www.dhs.gov/index.shtm) left for her new Homeland secretary position, she had a stand-off with Arizona Treasurer Dean Martin (http://www.aztreasury.gov/). The AZ Treasurer forewarned Napolitano about Arizona’s financial crisis, but she refused to heed his words.


With neighboring California on the verge of bankruptcy this year, many States will follow in their steps.



Many States are already scurrying to cut unwanted costs, cut State-funded programs, raise taxes, not issue tax refunds to their citizens, and borrow money just to survive in 2009. Unfortunately, many banks — the same banks the Fed bailed out — are refusing to loan money to the States and their Treasury agencies.


The article, State Budget Troubles Worsen (http://www.cbpp.org/9-8-08sfp.htm), at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (http://www.cbpp.org/) website is an excellent piece to read. It shows where each State currently stands in these challenging economic times, and you see 46 of the 50 States are clearly in the financial red.


It’s very possible you’ll see the end of the United States as we know it. If the Fed doesn’t bailout the States when their cash dries up and the banks don’t loan them money, then our States will be left in financial ruin. This would be a tragic and unprecedented event never experienced in the United States.


No State has ever filed bankruptcy, but it could be coming to a State near you this year.


We are on the brink of something far worse than the Great Depression.

[hippiehillbilly]

i saw this when it came out in December and immediately realized it was from the same folks who predicted the September meltdown way back in February.

http://www.leap2020.eu/GEAB-N-22-is-available!-Global-systemic-crisis-September-2008-Phase-of-collapse-of-US-real-economy_a1298.html (http://www.leap2020.eu/GEAB-N-22-is-available%21-Global-systemic-crisis-September-2008-Phase-of-collapse-of-US-real-economy_a1298.html)

if you look at that link you will see they were dead on in their prediction.
so keep that in mind when you read what they have predicted for march,and beyond.

http://www.leap2020.eu/GEAB-N-30-is-available!-Global-systemic-crisis-New-tipping-point-in-March-2009-When-the-world-becomes-aware-that-this_a2567.html (http://www.leap2020.eu/GEAB-N-30-is-available%21-Global-systemic-crisis-New-tipping-point-in-March-2009-When-the-world-becomes-aware-that-this_a2567.html)

Global systemic crisis – New tipping-point in March 2009: 'When the world becomes aware that this crisis is worse than the 1930s crisis'



LEAP/E2020 anticipates than the unfolding global systemic crisis will experience in March 2009 a new tipping point of similar magnitude to the September 2008 one. According to our team, at that period of the year, the general public will become aware of three major destabilizing processes at work in the global economy, i.e.:

• the length of the crisis
• the explosion of unemployment worldwide
• the risk of sudden collapse of all capital-based pension systems

A whole range of psychological factors will contribute to this tipping point: general awareness in Europe, America and Asia that the crisis has escaped from the control of every public authority, whether national or international; that it is severely affecting all regions of the world, even if some are more affected than others (see GEAB N°28); that it is directly hitting hundreds of millions of people in the “developed” world; and that it is only worsening as its consequences reveal throughout the real economy. National governments and international institutions only have three months left to prepare themselves to the next blow, one that could go along severe risks of social chaos. The countries which are not properly equipped to cope with a surge in unemployment and major risks on pensions will be seriously destabilized by this new public awareness.

In this 30th issue of the GEAB, the LEAP/E2020 team describes these three destabilizing processes (two of them are described in this public announcement) and gives recommendations to cope with the surge in risks. In addition, this issue also provides the opportunity to make an objective assessment of the reliability of LEAP/E2020's anticipations and specifies a number of methodological aspects of the analytical process used. In 2008, LEAP/E2020's success rate reaches 80%, and even 86% when it comes to strictly socio-econimic anticipations. In a year of major upheavals, our teal ise altogether quite proud of this result.




As we already explained in GEAB N°28, the crisis will affect in different ways the different regions of the world. However, and LEAP/E2020 wishes to be very clear on that aspect, contrary to the dominant stance today (coming from those experts who denied the fact that a crisis was coming up three years ago, who denied that it was global two years ago, and who denied the fact that it was systemic six months ago), we anticipate that the minimum duration of the decanting phase of the crisis is 3 years (1). It shall be finished neither in spring 2009, nor in summer 2009, nor at the beginning of 2010. It is only towards the end of 2010 that the situation will start stabilizing again and improving a little in some regions of the world, i.e. Asia and the Eurozone, as well as in countries producing energy, mineral and food commodities (2). Elsewhere, it will continue; in particular in the US and UK, and in all the countries depending on their economy, were the duration could approximate a decade. In fact these countries should not expect any real return to growth before 2018.

Moreover no one should imagine that the improvement at the end of 2010 will correspond to a return of high growth. The recovery will take long. For instance, stock markets will take a decade to return to levels comparable to 2007, if they ever return to that. Remember that it took twenty years before Wall Street resumed its 1920 levels. Well, according to LEAP/E2020, the present crisis is deeper and longer than in the 1930s. The general public will gradually become aware of the long-term aspect of this crisis in the coming three months and this situation will immediately trigger two tendencies carrying with them socio-economic instability: fear of the future and enhanced criticism towards leaders.


The risk of sudden collapse of all capital-based pension systems


Finally, among the various consequences of the crisis for dozens of millions of people in the US, Canada, UK, Japan, Netherlands and Denmark in particular (3), there is the fact that, from the end of the year 2008 onward, news about major losses on the part of the organizations in charge of managing the financial assets supposed to finance pensions will multiply. The OECD anticipates that pension funds will lose 4,000 billion USD in 2008 only (4). In the Netherlands (5) as well as in the United Kingdom (6), monitoring organizations recently blew the whistle asking for an emergency contribution reappraisal and a State intervention. In the United States, growing numbers of announcements call for contribution increases and benefit reductions (7), knowing that it is only in a few weeks time that most of these funds will start calculating their total losses (8). Most of them are still deluding themselves about their capacity to build up again their capital after the markets turn around. In March 2009, when pension fund managers, pensioners and governments will become simultaneously aware of the fact that the crisis is there to last, that it coincides with the « baby-boomer » generation’s age of retirement and that the markets will not resume their 2007 levels until many long years (9), chaos will flood this sector and governments will reach the moment when they will be compelled to nationalize all these funds. And Argentina, who took this decision a few months ago already, will appear a pioneer.

All the trends described above are already at work. Their combination and the public becoming aware of the consequences they could entail, will result in the great collective psychological trauma of Spring 2009, when everyone will realize that we are all trapped into a crisis worse than in the 1930s and that there is no possible way out in the short-term. The impact on the world’s collective mentalities of people and policy-makers will be decisive and modify significantly the course of the crisis in its next stage. Based on greater disillusion and fewer beliefs, social and political instability will settle down worldwide.

[hippiehillbilly]

America's Most Correct Internet Conspiracy Theorist Calls Next Market Crash (http://gawker.com/5141450/americas-most-correct-internet-conspiracy-theorist-calls-next-market-crash)


By Hamilton Nolan (http://gawker.com/people/Hamilton_Nolan/posts/), 5:09 PM (http://gawker.com/5141450/americas-most-correct-internet-conspiracy-theorist-calls-next-market-crash) on Wed Jan 28 2009, 15,114 view

http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/2009/01/custom_1233180194211_ill.jpg

Wacky—and maybe financially beneficial—blast from the past: one anonymous nut on a Google Finance message board correctly predicted the day of the crash of 2008 (http://gawker.com/5050016/how-legatus-brought-down-wall-street). Now that dude has another prediction, exclusively for you!

This guy nailed the September 15, 2008 market crash way back in July. Of course, he also attributed it all to a shady Catholic group called Legatus (http://gawker.com/5050016/how-legatus-brought-down-wall-street) that controls the world, but that's a small matter. Money is money. Now he has identified himself, (http://www.enterprisecorruption.com/)and he emails us this news:
February 09 2009
100% sure thing
market begins huge downfall
Do not say we didn't warn you.

mark it on your calenders..:rolleyes:

[hippiehillbilly]

story 1

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L1472255.htm

FACTBOX-Global financial crisis sparks unrest
02 Feb 2009 12:17:59 GMT
Source: Reuters
Feb 2 (Reuters) - Here are some details of protests and developments as a result of the global financial crisis:

* FRANCE

-- Hundreds of thousands of strikers marched in French cities on Thursday to demand pay rises and job protection. Some protesters clashed with police, but no major violence was reported.

-- The one-day strike failed to paralyse the country and support from private sector workers appeared limited. Labour leaders hailed the action, which marked the first time France's eight union federations had joined forces against the government since President Nicolas Sarkozy took office in 2007.

* RUSSIA

-- Thousands of opposition supporters rallied in Moscow and the far east port of Vladivostok on Saturday in a national day of protests over hardships caused by the financial crisis. On Sunday hundreds of demonstrators in Moscow called for Russia's leaders to resign.

-- Street rallies were held in almost every major city over the weekend. The pro-Kremlin United Russia party also drew thousands to rallies in support of government anti-crisis measures.

-- About 100 protesters were arrested in Vladivostok last month during protests against hikes in second hand car import duties aimed at protecting jobs in the domestic car industry.

* MADAGASCAR

-- More than 100 people were killed in civil unrest in Madagascar last week, according to the U.S. ambassador. Police previously confirmed 44 deaths, with most of those in a store burned during looting when an anti-government protest degenerated into violence.

-- The mayor of Antananarivo, Andry Rajoelina, galvanised popular frustrations to spearhead demonstrations and strikes against President Marc Ravalomanana's government. The violence came amid an oil and minerals exploration boom in Madagascar.

* ICELAND

-- Parties forming a new coalition for the crisis-hit island decided on Sunday its new prime minister will be former Social Affairs Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir.

-- Prime Minister Geir Haarde resigned last week after a series of protests, some of which had turned violent. He was the first leader to fall as a direct result of the credit crunch.

-- The collapse of the country's fast-expanding banks under a weight of debt forced the country to take a $10 billion IMF-led rescue package and sparked widespread anger.

* DAVOS

-- Hundreds of people rallied in Geneva and Davos on Saturday to protest against the World Economic Forum, saying the elite gathered for its annual meeting are not qualified to fix the world's problems.

-- In Geneva, where the WEF has its headquarters, police in riot gear fired teargas and water canon to disperse a crowd.

* BRITAIN

-- Up to 900 contractors at the Sellafield nuclear plant walked off the job on Monday, joining hundreds of other contract workers who have gone on strike in recent days over the use of foreign labourers as recession bites.

-- Thousands of energy workers staged walkouts on Friday, two days after contractors at a refinery owned by France's Total began protests at the award of a construction contract to Italian firm IREM. Unions say it has brought in workers from Italy and Portugal and deprived Britons of work.

* GREECE

-- Greek farmers removed roadblocks last week which caused 11 days of travel chaos across the country as they protested against low prices. They kept their blockade on Bulgaria's border and central Greece.

-- High youth unemployment was a main driver for rioting in Greece in December, initially sparked by the police shooting of a youth in an Athens neighbourhood. The protests forced a government reshuffle.

* GUADELOUPE

-- France sent a minister to the Caribbean island on Sunday for talks aimed at ending a 13-day general strike over pay and prices that has paralysed the French territory.

-- An alliance of 47 unions and local bodies launched their protest on Jan. 20 over the cost of living. They have drawn up a list of 146 demands including a 200 euro ($257) increase in the minimum salary, a freeze on rents and a cut in taxes and food prices. Island authorities have rejected the demands.

* BULGARIA

-- Hundreds of Bulgarians demanded economic and social reforms in the face of a global slowdown in anti-government rallies last month, calling on the Socialist-led government to act or step down.

-- Earlier in January, hundreds of protesters clashed with police, smashed windows and damaged cars in Sofia when a rally against corruption and slow reforms in the face of the economic crisis turned into a riot.

* LATVIA

-- A 10,000-strong protest in Latvia on Jan. 16 descended into a riot, with protesters trying to storm parliament before going on the rampage. Government steps to cut wages, as part of an austerity plan to win international aid, have angered people.

* LITHUANIA

-- Also on Jan. 16, police fired teargas to disperse demonstrators who pelted parliament with stones in protest at government cuts in social spending to offset an economic slowdown. Police said 80 people were detained and 20 injured.

-- Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius said the violence would not stop an austerity plan launched after a slide in output and revenues.
================================================== ===
story 2

Global Food Prices are Rising Fast (http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article8573.html)


As much as I hate to rain on the deflation parade, I must point out that food inflation is increasing worldwide. It seems that food prices are unaware that they should be falling, because they are instead rising fast all around the world.

For example in India, after more than two months of steady decline, inflation has risen for the second week in a row due to a spike in food prices. The Economic Times reports that Indian inflation touches 5.64 pc with no respite as prices rise (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Economy/Inflation_inches_up_to_564/articleshow/4049566.cms).

NEW DELHI: Costlier food items and a marginal increase in prices of decontrolled fuels pushed up inflation for the second week running even as economists stuck to their estimate of near zero inflation by the middle of 2009.

Government data showed inflation for the week ended January 17 at 5.64% against 5.6% in the previous week. The annual rate of year-on-year inflation was 4.45% in the corresponding week last year.
RBC News reports the same story in Russia, as inflation creeps up (http://www.rbcnews.com/free/20090128143347.shtml).
Russia's inflation amounted to 0.8 percent between January 20 and 26, 2009, and 2 percent for the year to date (compared to 2.2 percent for the same period of January 2008), the Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) reported today. In January 2008 as a whole, the inflation rate stood at 2.3 percent.

The rise in granulated sugar and tea prices contributed the most to the past week's inflation, reaching 6.5 percent and 1.2 percent, respectively. Meanwhile, prices for frozen fish, canned meat, rice, salt, and powdered baby milk increased 0.5-0.7 percent, whereas egg prices fell 1.3 percent and sunflower oil prices 0.8 percent. Fruit and vegetable prices rose 1.3 percent on average, while car gasoline and diesel fuel prices edged down 0.7 percent.
In Australia, Farm Online reports that fruit prices up 8pc, despite big CPI fall (http://sl.farmonline.com.au/news/nationalrural/horticulture/fruit/fruit-prices-up-8pc-despite-big-cpi-fall/1418723.aspx).
Australian retail fruit and vegetable prices rose by 8pc in the December quarter , standing out against the overall falling price trend, which has resulted in the biggest slide in consumer prices (CPI) for 11 years.

Fruit and vegetables received special mention among the Australian Bureau of Statistics CPI figures for leading the few price rises, followed by takeaway food, which increased by 1.5pc.

Fruit's prominent role, especially, in leading the CPI statistics is likely to be to stir vigorous comment from many Australian fruit growers.

Stone-fruit growers recently have been claiming prices received for their fruit have fallen below cost of production.

They've been vocal in criticising the supermarkets for not paying enough for their fruit.
In South Africa, the Business Day reports that food remains a worry despite falling CPIX (http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/topstories.aspx?ID=BD4A927810).
Measured by the target measure CPIX, consumer price inflation came in below market expectations at 10,3% in December, down from 12,1% in November and the recent peak of 13,6% in August. Transport inflation was sharply down, at only 2% year on year, from 13,3%, because of further cuts in the petrol price, which is now almost 50% down on its July peak. Food remains a worry, though. It remained stubbornly high at nearly 17.1% in December , despite declining international grain and other commodity prices.
In Northern Ireland, the Belfast Telegraph reports that the food bills soar at more than double the inflation rate (http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/food-bills-soar-at-more-than-double-the-inflation-rate-14159588.html).
Consumers in Northern Ireland could find rising food bills an added challenge as the recession starts to bite over the coming months.

New figures provided by comparison website mySupermarket.co.uk reveal that the cost of food is going up at more than twice the official rate of inflation. The statistics show that the price of all food and drink products has risen by 6.6% during the year to January 14.

They also show even steeper price rises for staple food items — such as bread, milk and cheese — with the cost of a basket of goods rising by 16% during the past year.
In Canada, the Ottawa Citizen reports that consumers face higher costs despite low inflation (http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Business/Consumers+face+higher+costs+despite+inflation/1210939/story.html).
OTTAWA — Canadian consumers — tens of thousands of whom have already lost their jobs to the recession — may find this hard to swallow, but despite headlines of falling interest rates and waning inflation, their grocery bills and borrowing costs are in fact rising.

While prices fell 0.7 per cent month-to-month and the annual inflation rate to 1.2 per cent in December — projected to fall below zero this year — grocery prices were nine per cent higher than a year earlier , Statistics Canada reported Friday.

"Inflation is at a two-year low, but that's not the way it feels for those of us shopping for groceries," said CIBC World Markets economist Krishen Rangasamy. "As talk of generalized deflation is surfacing, prematurely in our view, food prices continue to trend higher , with the depreciating loonie boosting prices for fresh fruits, vegetables and other imports."
My reaction: Despite the economic crisis and widespread deflation fears, world food prices are rising. This major escalation in food prices calls to question the conventional wisdom that inflation is not a problem.

1) Rising food prices are likely to continue
There is a misguided notion that lower demand, lower commodity costs, and deflation will lead to lower prices. This is false:

A) Falling demand only lowers prices when producers have room to cut prices . If businesses have no profit margin with which to absorb lower prices, then falling demand, instead of lowering prices, lowers the supply of goods by forcing companies into bankruptcy. This is what is happening, as demonstrated by Pilgrim's Pride Corp, the No. 1 US chicken producer, which declared bankruptcy on December 1.

As companies are forced out of business because of their inability to pass on higher costs, the supply of goods is reduced and their surviving competitors have room to raise prices. This can be seen in the rising price of chicken wings in the wake of Pilgrim's Pride's Bankruptcy

B) Companies didn't raise prices enough in 2008 to compensate for rising manufacturing costs. While the commodity bubble was exploding, companies held back on price increases to avoid losing customers, but now they must pass on last year's increased costs to stay in business. Kellogg, for instance, earlier this month announced plans to lift prices on three of its cereals in the "low-to-mid single digit" range to help offset increased production costs, and these price increases will likely be matched by rivaling companies.

C) Deflation fears are forcing up borrowing costs, which like commodity costs, must be passed on to consumers. While the fed might have lowered interest rates, banks aren't lending and companies face much higher financing cost. The failure to pass on higher borrowing cost will lead to more bankruptcies and less supply. Again, this reduced supply will allow surviving competitors to raise prices.

Everyone who is expecting deflation is ignoring this reality: companies can't sell goods below their production costs and stay in business. Since the profit margins of manufacturers at home and abroad were razor thin going into this crisis, don't expect prices to drop. Expect companies to go bankrupt.

2) Unlike last year's artificial inflation, today's rising prices are the real thing
Last year's inflation, especially the higher prices related to oil, was fake. When oil hit 147 dollars a barrel, it didn't do so because of supply/demand dynamics, but because of speculator dominated futures markets in the US (http://www.marketskeptics.com/2009/01/wti-has-become-about-as-useful-as.html). Hedge funds, pension funds and, other investors piled blindly commodity indexes and ETFs while knowing nothing of the fundamentals underlying the commodities they were buying, or even WHICH commodities they were buying. This enormous influx of dumb money created an impressive bubble and resulted in artificially high inflation rates seen around the world last year.

Today's worldwide food inflation is a far different story, because it is happening in the face of widespread deflation fears . Consumers are delaying purchases. Banks are hoarding cash (ie: most Chinese merchants aren't accepting credit cards because banks are delaying payments (http://www.marketskeptics.com/2009/01/chinese-banks-are-hoarding-cash.html)). Businesses are scaling back expansions and reigning in spending. Yet, despite all these factors, food prices are going up. Isn't that interesting?
It also begs a very interesting question: if everyone, from individuals to businesses, has scaled back their spending due to deflation fears, what happens to already rising food prices when deflation fears go away?

3) Rising worldwide food prices will quickly bring an end to today's deflation fears

Rising worldwide food inflation is surprising and puzzling economists. They don't understand why it is happening (they didn't see the credit crisis or the bursting commodity bubble coming either). Next month, as food inflation continues to grow worse and consumers around the world start stockpiling food, these economists will really start to worry, and, in about two months time, with food inflation truly spiraling out of control, they start panicking, their deflation predictions completely forgotten.

Conclusion:
The US is not immune from rising food inflation: prices for food in US grocery stores jumped 6.6% last year, the biggest spike since 1980. Even this December, which saw gasoline prices fall by 17.2% (the biggest monthly decline in 71 years), food costs refused to fall. If US food prices couldn't muster a fall in December, five months after the commodity bubble burst and deflation fears gripped the world, then they should not be expected to fall at all.

Rising worldwide food prices also have very negative implications for the dollar . Many countries that are seeing rising food inflation do possess the means to bring it under control: sell off their US reserves. Russia and India alone have over 800 billion dollars they can sell to strengthen their currencies and lower their food costs. So if food inflation keeps increasing, expect a growing quantity of treasuries to be sold by central bankers desperate to prevent starvation at home.

Finally, the rise in world food prices increases the likelihood of out of control inflation in China (http://www.marketskeptics.com/2009/01/hyperinflation-will-begin-in-china-and.html). Should China drop its dollar peg and start to sell its immense US reserves to fight domestic hyperinflation, the dollar will likely lose its reserve status and most of its value.

Buy gold (and food).

[hippiehillbilly]

The Depression of 2008-201? (http://www.fleetstreetinvest.co.uk/daily-reckoning/bill-bonner-essays/economic-depression-ahead-09567.html)


Date 02/02/2009
Fleet Street Daily (http://www.fleetstreetinvest.co.uk/free-e-letters/fleet-street-daily.html)| By Bill Bonner (http://www.fleetstreetinvest.co.uk/search.html?SearchAdvancedCategory=FSIAll&author=Bill%20Bonner) Paris, France

Oh...we got a good laugh this morning. Our favorite philosopher, Thomas L. Friedman, suddenly seemed to have understood something important:

“There is no magic bullet for this economic crisis,” said he.

Then, (will wonders never cease!) he actually seemed to draw forth an insight:

“We are going to have to live with a lot more uncertainty for a lot longer than our generation has ever experienced.”

Whoa. That’s like, deep.

We’ll get back to Friedman in a moment... and to why a real depression is arriving...

First, a quick look at the headlines:

“Americans saving more, spending less,” sets the tempo of the times.

On Friday, the Dow lost 148 points. But gold gained $20. The ratio of gold to the Dow tells us that either stocks have much further to fall... or gold has much further to increase. We’re looking for a ratio of one to one. At its peak in 2000, you needed 43 ounces of gold to buy the Dow stocks. Now you need only about 10. Still a way to go. Most likely, the Dow will fall... and meet the price of gold on the way up... at about 3,000. :eek:

“America’s love affair with malls is on the rocks,” says a report.

And talk about deflation! India, which is now producing $2,000 cars, announced a project to build laptop computers that will sell for 20 bucks.

But let’s get back to Friedman. What happened to him? Did he drop the hair dryer in the bathtub... and give himself a jolt? Suddenly, he’s saying something that is modest and sensible.

But Friedman’s brush with intelligence lasted only three paragraphs. Then, it’s back to the old simpleton Friedman... with a solution to every crisis... and a fix for every problem his last solution caused:

“The fact that there’s no single pill doesn’t mean there’s nothing to be done. We need a stimulus big enough to create more jobs. We need to remove toxic assets from bank balance sheets. We need the US Treasury to close the insolvent banks, merge the weak ones and strengthen the healthy few. And we need to do each one right.”

Good luck on that, Tom. These people doing all these wonderful things are the very same people who didn’t notice that anything was the financial sector in the first place. Mr. Geithner was right there at the New York Fed, hobnobbing with the masters of the universe, dining with the captains of the financial industry, nodding in approval as the biggest bamboozle in history was put over on investors and the public.

And even if Geither were a genius who had warned us about excesses on Wall Street, he still wouldn’t be the fixer Friedman imagines.

You can fix a recession with this kind of tinkering. But you can’t fix a depression. And what we face now is a depression.

Economic Depression Ahead



*** Yes, dear reader, the picture is becoming clearer and clearer. It is not very different from what we expected... but it is drawing closer. We see more detail. Like an asteroid that is on course to destroy the earth, it is getting close enough so we can make out the hills and the craters...

Many thanks to David Rosenberg, an economist at Merrill Lynch (http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article7573.html), for training his telescope on this rock from Hell.

He notices two disturbing features.

First, it is not a recession; it is a Depression. While there’s no precise difference between the two, a depression is regarded as more severe... and NOT susceptible to normal government fixes. Typically, a downturn is met with lower interest rates and higher government spending. These twin missiles of increased consumer credit and higher deficits blast the asteroid to smithereens before it reaches earth.

But as we have opined many times, this time it’s different. We have a real, structural Depression on our hands... caused by too much debt. When people get in this situation, they can’t spend more – even if someone offers them more credit on easier terms.

“People make a very conscious decision not to by, and that kind of decision is not reversed quickly,” said an analyst to the New York Times.

How much debt is too much? Well, private debt is usually about 80% of GDP. Now, it’s about 140% of GDP. That’s about $6 trillion of debt that needs to be paid off... or written off. And that’s after $1 trillion of write-offs in 2007 & 2008.

There are only three ways to attack this debt: inflation, liquidation, or boondogglization. Friedman... and practically all mainstream economists and politicians... favour the third choice. A little of this... a little of that... and something for everyone...

“In order to pass a piece of legislation, “explained a Democrat from New York, “items are added that are necessary to secure the votes.”

The International Herald Tribune (http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/02/01/business/prexy.1-419995.php) tells a bit of what has been put into the Obama plan:

“...there is $54 billion in the bill in the House of Representatives for new forms of “American energy,” a phrase with an air of nationalism, along with a series of ‘Buy America” requirements of dubious legality under trade treaties; $141 billion for education; $24 billion for lowering health care costs; and $6 billion for broadband service...” etc. etc.

Colleague Porter Stansberry adds this assessment:

“Congress wants you to believe we can dig ourselves out of the financial crisis by spending $400 million to research global warming, $650 million to convert analog TVs to digital, $7 billion to "modernize" federal buildings, and $20 billion on food stamps, etc. According to the Wall Street Journal, "only $90 billion out of $825 billion, or about 12 cents of every $1, is for something that can plausibly be considered a growth stimulus.”

We don’t doubt that all this corruption is well-meant. Heck, who doesn’t want to blow up this Depression Asteroid before it hits us? But Boondogglization won’t work. Because it doesn’t solve the real problem – the debt. It merely moves debt from the private sector to the public sector; overall, debt actually increases.

There is about $6 trillion worth of debt that needs to be eliminated before the economy can begin to grow again. Liquidation would do it – quickly and painfully. People would get what they had coming. The US dollar-based system would collapse. Everyone would learn a lesson and be better off for it.

But that could happen only over the dead bodies of Ben Bernanke and other key policy makers. Which is our preferred approach. But we are in a tiny minority. Everyone else believes that somehow some hocus-pocus will get us out of this mess without pain or suffering.

Let’s “get all the right people into the room and close the door and put a solution up on the wall,” said Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase.

Eventually, the solution these simpletons are going to look at is the only one that will really work: inflation. Overt. Shameless. Explicit inflation.

Eventually, when their boondoggling is clearly not working... and when unemployment is over 12%... they will turn to Gideon Gono and ask for his help.

When? We’ll take up that issue tomorrow... as the Daily Reckoning continues!

[hippiehillbilly]

Obama: Trilateral Commission Endgame (http://www.augustreview.com/news_commentary/trilateral_commission/obama:_trilateral_commission_endgame_20090127110/)

By Patrick Wood, Editor
January 30, 2009

[Ed. note: For clarity, members of the http://www.augustreview.com/mambots/content/glossarbot/info.gifTrilateral Commission (javascript:void(0)) appear in bold type.]

As previously noted in Pawns of the Global Elite (http://www.augustreview.com/news_commentary/u.s._elections/obama_and_mccain%3a_pawns_of_the_global_elite?_200 8080597/), Barack Obama was groomed for the presidency by key members of the Trilateral Commission. Most notably, it was Zbigniew Brzezinski, co-founder of the Trilateral Commission with David Rockefeller in 1973, who was Obama's principal foreign policy advisor.
The pre-election attention is reminiscent of Brzezinski's tutoring of Jimmy Carter prior to Carter's landslide election in 1976.
For anyone who doubts the Commission's continuing influence on Obama, consider that he has already appointed no less than eleven members of the Commission to top-level and key positions in his Administration.
According to official Trilateral Commission membership lists, there are only 87 members from the United States (the other 337 members are from other regions). Thus, in less than two weeks since his inauguration, Obama's appointments encompass more than 12% of Commission's entire U.S. membership.
Is this a mere coincidence or is it a continuation of dominance over the Executive Branch since 1976? (For important background, read The Trilateral Commission: Usurping Sovereignty (http://www.augustreview.com/issues/globalization/the_trilateral_commission%3a_usurping_sovereignty_ 2007080373/).)


Secretary of Treasury, Tim Geithner
Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice
National Security Advisor, Gen. James L. Jones
Deputy National Security Advisor, Thomas Donilon
Chairman, Economic Recovery Committee, Paul Volker
Director of National Intelligence, Admiral Dennis C. Blair
Assistant Secretary of State, Asia & Pacific, Kurt M. Campbell
Deputy Secretary of State, James Steinberg
State Department, Special Envoy, Richard Haass
State Department, Special Envoy, Dennis Ross
State Department, Special Envoy, Richard Holbrooke

There are many other incidental links to the Trilateral Commission, for instance,
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is married to Commission member William Jefferson Clinton.

Geithner's informal group of advisors include E. Gerald Corrigan, Paul Volker, Alan Greenspan and Peter G. Peterson, among others. His first job after college was with Henry Kissinger at Kissinger Associates.

Brent Scowcroft has been an unofficial advisor to Obama and was mentor to Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
Robert Zoelick is currently president of the http://www.augustreview.com/mambots/content/glossarbot/info.gifWorld Bank (javascript:void(0))

Laurence Summers, White House Economic Advisor, was mentored by former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin during the Clinton administration.
There are many other such links, but these are enough for you to get the idea of what's going on here.

Analyze the positions

Notice that five of the Trilateral appointees involve the State Department, where foreign policy is created and implemented. Hillary Clinton is certainly in line with these policies because her husband, Bill Clinton, is also a member.

What is more important than economic recovery? Paul Volker is the answer.

What is more important than national intelligence? Gen. James Jones, Thomas Donilon and Adm. Dennis Blair hold the top three positions.
What is more important than the Treasury and the saving of our financial system? Timothy Geithner says he has the answers.
The State Department is virtually dominated by Trilaterals: Kurt Campbell, James Steinberg, Richard Haass, Dennis Ross and Richard Holbrooke.
This leaves Susan Rice, Ambassador to the United Nations. The U.N. is the chosen instrument for ultimate global governance. Rice will help to subvert the U.S. into the U.N. umbrella of vassal states.

Conflict of interest


Since 1973, the Commission has met regularly in plenary sessions to discuss policy position papers developed by its members. Policies are debated in order to achieve consensuses. Respective members return to their own countries to implement policies consistent with those consensuses.
The original stated purpose of the Trilateral Commission was to create a "New International Economic Order." Its current statement has morphed into fostering a "closer cooperation among these core democratic industrialized areas of the world with shared leadership responsibilities in the wider international system." (See The Trilateral Commission web site (http://www.trilateral.org/about.htm))
U.S. Trilateral members implement policies determined by a majority of non-Americans that most often work against the best interests of the country.
"How," you say?
Since the administration of Jimmy Carter, Trilaterals held these massively influential positions:


Six out of eight World Bank presidents, including the current appointee, Robert Zoelick
Eight out of ten U.S. Trade Representatives
President and/or Vice-President of every elected administration (except for Obama/Biden)
Seven out of twelve Secretaries of State
Nine out of twelve Secretaries of Defense

Is this sinking in? Are you grasping the enormity of it?
Endgame is at hand


For the Trilateral crowd, the game is about over. The recent reemergence of original members Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Brent Scowcroft and Paul Volker serves to reinforce the conclusion that the New International Economic Order is near.
The Trilateral Commission and its members have engineered the global economic, trade and financial system that is currently in a state of total chaos.
Does that mean that they have lost? Hardly.
As I recently wrote in Chorus call for New World Order (http://www.augustreview.com/news_commentary/trilateral_commission/chorus_call_for_new_world_order_20090108109/), they are using the crisis to destroy what remains of national http://www.augustreview.com/mambots/content/glossarbot/info.gifSovereignty (javascript:void(0)), so that a New World Order can finally and permanently be put into place.

Conclusion

The Obama presidency is a disingenuous fraud. He was elected by promising to bring change, yet from the start change was never envisioned. He was carefully groomed and financed by the Trilateral Commission and their friends.

In short, Obama is merely the continuation of disastrous, non-American policies that have brought economic ruin upon us and the rest of the world. The Obama experience rivals that of Jimmy Carter, whose campaign slogan was "I will never lie to you."
When the Democrat base finally realizes that it has been conned again (Bill Clinton and Al Gore were members), perhaps it will unleash a real political revolution that will oust Trilateral politicians, operatives and policies from the shores of our country.
If the reader is a Democrat, be aware that many Republicans and conservatives are still licking their wounds after finally realizing that George Bush and Dick Cheney worked the same con on them for a disastrous eight years of the same policies!

[zihger]

http://www.leap2020.eu/GEAB-N-30-is-available!-Global-systemic-crisis-New-tipping-point-in-March-2009-When-the-world-becomes-aware-that-this_a2567.html (http://www.leap2020.eu/GEAB-N-30-is-available%21-Global-systemic-crisis-New-tipping-point-in-March-2009-When-the-world-becomes-aware-that-this_a2567.html)

Global systemic crisis – New tipping-point in March 2009: 'When the world becomes aware that this crisis is worse than the 1930s crisis'

^This was a good read I think it is about right.. the way shut downs and unemployment are going I think about March and the general public will realize that things are going to be different.

I still keep hearing people saying they are “waiting for the market to pop back up” or ‘the bail out to start working”.

Just a little recession Obama will fix it. lol

[hippiehillbilly]

im not quite sure who actually runs leap,but like i said,they pegged september 7 months in advance. one has to think their latest analysis will be pretty accurate as well..

thanks for reading.. :)

[zihger]

I was just watching a video on about the same subject, kind of a mainstream fluff piece but it had some interesting comments.

http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/168779/Obama-Warns-of-'Catastrophe'-What-Happened-to-'Hope'-and-'Change'?tickers=%5Edji,%5Egspc,%5EIXIC,SPY,DIA,QQ QQ,TLT

They were predicting the public honeymoon with Obama will fade out in March or April

The one guy was commenting on Obamas global relations and the bad comments he has been making with Russian and China. Basically starting to provoke trouble.
Then he points out “All world wars were bred from economic hardship.”

[hippiehillbilly]

yeah,i think reality is finally bleeding through to the mainstream media..

[hippiehillbilly]

It’s Not Going to Be OK (http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090202_its_not_going_to_be_ok/)


By Chris Hedges (http://www.truthdig.com/about/staff/70)
The daily bleeding of thousands of jobs will soon turn our economic crisis into a political crisis. The street protests, strikes and riots that have rattled France, Turkey, Greece, Ukraine, Russia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria and Iceland will descend on us. It is only a matter of time. And not much time. When things start to go sour, when Barack Obama is exposed as a mortal waving a sword at a tidal wave, the United States could plunge into a long period of precarious social instability.


At no period in American history has our democracy been in such peril or has the possibility of totalitarianism been as real. Our way of life is over. Our profligate consumption is finished. Our children will never have the standard of living we had. And poverty and despair will sweep across the landscape like a plague. This is the bleak future. There is nothing President Obama can do to stop it. It has been decades in the making. It cannot be undone with a trillion or two trillion dollars in bailout money. Our empire is dying. Our economy has collapsed.


How will we cope with our decline? Will we cling to the absurd dreams of a superpower and a glorious tomorrow or will we responsibly face our stark new limitations? Will we heed those who are sober and rational, those who speak of a new simplicity and humility, or will we follow the demagogues and charlatans who rise up out of the slime in moments of crisis to offer fantastic visions? Will we radically transform our system to one that protects the ordinary citizen and fosters the common good, that defies the corporate state, or will we employ the brutality and technology of our internal security and surveillance apparatus to crush all dissent? We won’t have to wait long to find out.


There are a few isolated individuals who saw it coming. The political philosophers Sheldon S. Wolin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheldon_S._Wolin), John Ralston Saul and Andrew Bacevich, as well as writers such as Noam Chomsky, Chalmers Johnson (http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/item/20080515_chalmers_johnson_on_our_managed_democracy/), David Korten and Naomi Klein, along with activists such as Bill McKibben and Ralph Nader, rang the alarm bells. They were largely ignored or ridiculed. Our corporate media and corporate universities proved, when we needed them most, intellectually and morally useless.



Wolin, who taught political philosophy at the University of California in Berkeley and at Princeton, in his book “Democracy Incorporated” uses the phrase inverted totalitarianism (http://www.thenation.com/doc/20030519/wolin) to describe our system of power. Inverted totalitarianism, unlike classical totalitarianism, does not revolve around a demagogue or charismatic leader. It finds its expression in the anonymity of the corporate state. It purports to cherish democracy, patriotism and the Constitution while cynically manipulating internal levers to subvert and thwart democratic institutions. Political candidates are elected in popular votes by citizens, but they must raise staggering amounts of corporate funds to compete. They are beholden to armies of corporate lobbyists in Washington or state capitals who write the legislation. A corporate media controls nearly everything we read, watch or hear and imposes a bland uniformity of opinion or diverts us with trivia and celebrity gossip. In classical totalitarian regimes, such as Nazi fascism or Soviet communism, economics was subordinate to politics. “Under inverted totalitarianism the reverse is true,” Wolin writes. “Economics dominates politics—and with that domination comes different forms of ruthlessness.”



I reached Wolin, 86, by phone at his home about 25 miles north of San Francisco. He was a bombardier in the South Pacific during World War II and went to Harvard after the war to get his doctorate. Wolin has written classics such as “Politics and Vision” and “Tocqueville Between Two Worlds.” His newest book is one of the most important and prescient critiques to date of the American political system. He is also the author of a series of remarkable essays on Augustine of Hippo, Richard Hooker, David Hume, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Max Weber, Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx and John Dewey. His voice, however, has faded from public awareness because, as he told me, “it is harder and harder for people like me to get a public hearing.” He said that publications, such as The New York Review of Books, which often published his work a couple of decades ago, lost interest in his critiques of American capitalism, his warnings about the subversion of democratic institutions and the emergence of the corporate state. He does not hold out much hope for Obama.



“The basic systems are going to stay in place; they are too powerful to be challenged,” Wolin told me when I asked him about the new Obama administration. “This is shown by the financial bailout. It does not bother with the structure at all. I don’t think Obama can take on the kind of military establishment we have developed. This is not to say that I do not admire him. He is probably the most intelligent president we have had in decades. I think he is well meaning, but he inherits a system of constraints that make it very difficult to take on these major power configurations. I do not think he has the appetite for it in any ideological sense. The corporate structure is not going to be challenged. There has not been a word from him that would suggest an attempt to rethink the American imperium (http://www.thenation.com/doc/20071029/kutler).”



Wolin argues that a failure to dismantle our vast and overextended imperial projects, coupled with the economic collapse, is likely to result in inverted totalitarianism. He said that without “radical and drastic remedies” the response to mounting discontent and social unrest will probably lead to greater state control and repression. There will be, he warned, a huge “expansion of government power.”


“Our political culture has remained unhelpful in fostering a democratic consciousness,” he said. “The political system and its operatives will not be constrained by popular discontent or uprisings.”



Wolin writes that in inverted totalitarianism consumer goods and a comfortable standard of living, along with a vast entertainment industry that provides spectacles and diversions, keep the citizenry politically passive. I asked if the economic collapse and the steady decline in our standard of living might not, in fact, trigger classical totalitarianism. Could widespread frustration and poverty lead the working and middle classes to place their faith in demagogues, especially those from the Christian right?
“I think that’s perfectly possible,” he answered. “That was the experience of the 1930s. There wasn’t just FDR. There was Huey Long (http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAlongH.htm) and Father Coughlin (http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005516). There were even more extreme movements including the Klan. The extent to which those forces can be fed by the downturn and bleakness is a very real danger. It could become classical totalitarianism.”
He said the widespread political passivity is dangerous. It is often exploited by demagogues who pose as saviors and offer dreams of glory and salvation. He warned that “the apoliticalness, even anti-politicalness, will be very powerful elements in taking us towards a radically dictatorial direction. It testifies to how thin the commitment to democracy is in the present circumstances. Democracy is not ascendant. It is not dominant. It is beleaguered. The extent to which young people have been drawn away from public concerns and given this extraordinary range of diversions makes it very likely they could then rally to a demagogue.”


Wolin lamented that the corporate state has successfully blocked any real debate about alternative forms of power. Corporations determine who gets heard and who does not, he said. And those who critique corporate power are given no place in the national dialogue.


“In the 1930s there were all kinds of alternative understandings, from socialism to more extensive governmental involvement,” he said. “There was a range of different approaches. But what I am struck by now is the narrow range within which palliatives are being modeled. We are supposed to work with the financial system. So the people who helped create this system are put in charge of the solution. There has to be some major effort to think outside the box.”


“The puzzle to me is the lack of social unrest,” Wolin said when I asked why we have not yet seen rioting or protests. He said he worried that popular protests will be dismissed and ignored by the corporate media. This, he said, is what happened when tens of thousands protested the war in Iraq. This will permit the state to ruthlessly suppress local protests, as happened during the Democratic and Republic conventions. Anti-war protests in the 1960s gained momentum from their ability to spread across the country, he noted. This, he said, may not happen this time. “The ways they can isolate protests and prevent it from [becoming] a contagion are formidable,” he said.



“My greatest fear is that the Obama administration will achieve relatively little in terms of structural change,” he added. “They may at best keep the system going. But there is a growing pessimism. Every day we hear how much longer the recession will continue. They are already talking about beyond next year. The economic difficulties are more profound than we had guessed and because of globalization more difficult to deal with. I wish the political establishment, the parties and leadership, would become more aware of the depths of the problem. They can’t keep throwing money at this. They have to begin structural changes that involve a very different approach from a market economy. I don’t think this will happen.”
“I keep asking why and how and when this country became so conservative,” he went on. “This country once prided itself on its experimentation and flexibility. It has become rigid. It is probably the most conservative of all the advanced countries.”


The American left, he said, has crumbled. It sold out to a bankrupt Democratic Party, abandoned the working class and has no ability to organize. Unions are a spent force. The universities are mills for corporate employees. The press churns out info-entertainment or fatuous pundits. The left, he said, no longer has the capacity to be a counterweight to the corporate state. He said that if an extreme right gains momentum there will probably be very little organized resistance.


“The left is amorphous,” he said. “I despair over the left. Left parties may be small in number in Europe but they are a coherent organization that keeps going. Here, except for Nader’s efforts, we don’t have that. We have a few voices here, a magazine there, and that’s about it. It goes nowhere.”

[hippiehillbilly]

Codex Alimentarius - How the global elite will control your food supply (http://www.dailynewscaster.com/2009/02/04/codex-alimetarius-how-the-global-elite-will-control-your-food-supply/)

By: Robert Singer @ 8:36 PM - EST

http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/dd49/airborne373/CodexNHFbookjune07.jpg
The Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC), based in Rome, Italy is an international organization jointly created in 1962 by the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) of the United Nations “allegedly” to protect the health of consumers with guidelines for food standards.


Codex Alimentarius may present the greatest disaster for our food supply and thus our health this country has ever seen, and if not stopped is likely to be implemented in 2011.


The Codex and its regulations affecting our food sovereignty go back to 1962. Fortunately in 1994 Congress passed the Dietary Supplements Health and Education Act (DSHEA) which for the moment preserved the definition of vitamins, minerals and herbs as foods.


Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) and the “World According to Monsanto,” (http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=world%20according%20to%20monsanto&sourceid=navclient-ff&rlz=1B3GGGL_enUS304US304&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wv#) should be required viewing and are related to the Codex. In the U.S. and in the Codex GMO’s do not require labeling making in impossible to know what you are eating.


Without congressional oversight the U.S. will move towards the policies of Canada and Mexico where supplements are considered drugs, not foods. Codex if implemented will reverse DSHEA and the U.S. will no longer treat dietary supplements as foods, but as toxins.



For 18 years Norway, Switzerland, Russia, Japan, the European Union and most African countries have fought the U.S. unsuccessfully to require labeling of GMOs. The U.S. erroneously considers GMOs equal to non-GMOs based solely on a 1992 Executive Order from then Skull and Bones president George H. Bush.


The Codex will be enforced by the barrel of a gun.
The FDA will use their power to outlaw more than raw almonds and tryptophan. In Ohio a food co-op was raided Gestapo style (http://www.dailynewscaster.com/2008/12/18/ohio-police-hold-family-hostage-for-having-too-much-food/)by the USDA because they sold a dozen eggs to an aggressive undercover agent “without a business license.”

Is the FDA looking out for consumers … unlikely.
Half of the 198 new drugs the FDA approved from 1976 to 1985 had to be withdrawn or relabeled because they caused unexpected side effects. Predictably no one at the FDA withdrew Donald Rumsfeld’s Aspartame (http://www.dailynewscaster.com/2008/06/08/dark-history-of-aspartame/) sold under the trade names Equal and NutraSweet. Aspartame is a deadly carcinogen made from the feces of e coli bacteria that we can’t avoid because it’s an additive in just about every food we eat.


The story gets even more interesting when you find out NAZI Germany’s notorious I.G. Farben cartel is behind Codex and the proposals that would drastically curtail our health care freedoms.


Catherine Bertini, the head of the UN food programs in 1995, paraphrased the famous Kissinger statement, “Food is power. We use it to change behavior.”


Is this the first time you have heard of “Codex Alimentarius?” That’s not unusual because Codex is an “open secret.” The information is available if you want to look for it but the corporate controlled media isn’t going to tell you about it until its already too late.
Monsanto, Big Pharma, Chema and Agra have convinced most companies “Codex is a non-issue”, and that they will actually gain market share when Codex is implemented.


So who is raising awareness about this issue?
John C. Hammell of International Advocates for Health Freedom and Ian Crane an ex oil field executive. Ian lectures and writes on U.S. Hegemony and the NWO agenda for control of Global Resources.
Mr Crane says, “After spending the past twelve months investigating Codex Alimentarius, I am deeply disturbed by the almost total lack of awareness (or even interest) with regard to the implications of this pernicious global Commission, particularly amongst those most affected by the excesses of this restrictive legislation.”
The general lack of public awarness is well illustrated by the low traffic volume visiting his website. (http://www.ianrcrane.co.uk/)
Ian warns of the “pernicious” effects legislation will have believing “without a shadow of a doubt” there is a plot by major food and pharmaceutical companies to see that the Codex proposals become international law.


Codex is laying siege to our freedom of choice, let’s stop it.
Normally I don’t recommend those take action campaigns. The ones that tell you, it’s not too late, click-here to importune our elected representatives with emails and faxes. But Codex Alemintarius is different.
The inconvenient truth for our elected representatives their families and staff is they have to eat and take vitamins and supplements… just like us. So go ahead and email, fax and phone. This is one email campaign that might just work.


It’s going to come down to a massive rebellion.
The DSHEA law that kept the FDA off our backs was passed because millions and millions of letters were sent to people in Congress demanding health freedom. International Advocates for Health Freedom website has a “take action” (http://www.nocodexgenocide.com/page/page/3113337.htm) page.


Think buying organic will help you? Well, not as much as you think, because the U.S. currently allows for up to 10% of GMO contamination of organic foods (the highest of any country in the world, most permit 0.1%).
You can make a difference by support local self sustaining farmers who refuse to use GMO seeds. And of course start a garden and grow your own food.
Because guess what? …..They can’t stop us from growing our own food.

[Fyrenza]

thanks for reading.. :)

Huh??? :eek:

Thank YOU ~

for sifting through all the bullspit

and finding decent articles to share with us!!! :cheers2:

[hippiehillbilly]

not a problem, im glad you find them interesting..

as i said weekends are slow news wise so ill just throw a couple things up..

Sign of the Times - Gold for Sale in New Orleans (http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/02/sign-of-times-gold-for-sale-in-new.html)



Here is a sign of the times, hard times.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_nSTO-vZpSgc/SY017WkwpSI/AAAAAAAAFj0/cPtilV6sh_8/s400/gold+teeth.png
My friend Marty writes ...

Mish,
Got the photo from a friend. The white sign that has been blacked out used to be the Toy Center. The biggest & best toy store in New Orleans in the late 50's early 60's. The Coca Cola bottling plant & Tulane Shirt Company were just to the left on S. Jefferson Davis Parkway.
Times have changed.
Yours,
Marty

Thanks Marty!

All kinds of assets are going to be for sale in the upcoming months. This is just a start of what's to come.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
(http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/)
mish has his monthly unemployment analysis up as well.
to many charts an graphs to copy so heres a link..
as always,worth a look..

Jobs Contract 13th Straight Month; Unemployment Rate Soars to 7.6% (http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/02/jobs-contract-13th-straight-month.html)

[hippiehillbilly]

Thread link: http://www.doomers.us/forum2/index.p...c,37866.0.html (http://www.doomers.us/forum2/index.php/topic,37866.0.html)

ALERT: Watch the markets Feb 9- Feb 13, major default

In February the stimulas package will crash the DOW. This will cause a dramatic decline in the dollar.

Synthetic CDO's about to blow. All companies with synthetic CDO's will have to pay back trillions of dollars. If a goup of companies fail while holding synthetic CDO's then all the companies holding synthetic CDO's must repay. These include Bear Stearns, Lehman, all 3 Icelandic banks, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, Country Wide, Washington Mutual, GM, Ford, AT&T, and etc.

the estimate of synthetic CDO's is unimaginable, and its about to burst. Tens of trillions of dollars are about to disappear.

ill be back with more info..... my source blacked out his site. he has been accurate on everything so far.. why did he suddenly disappear?

http://www.enterprisecorruption.com/

reinhardt was his blog name.

[Fyrenza]

Way to scare the stuffin' out of me! :p

The Texas shortfall isn't due to happen until some time in 2010, so we still a chance to side-track the most bogus of expenditures.

Anyway, Links, Links ~>

http://www.empowertexans.com/node/783

http://www.cppp.org/category.php?cid=6

http://www.sealynews.com/articles/2009/01/16/news/news03.txt

[Pressed_Rat]

I think it's good to know what's going on, but at the same time all this doom and gloom can actually serve as a form of psychological warfare, to make people feel demoralized and disillusioned. I think that is what they want, because when people feel powerless they often turn to the state for help. There is no doubt things are bad -- you know it and I know it. I also think there is no chance at this point of the people doing anything to stop what is happening. The public is too brainwashed and most people will laugh at the truth no matter how obvious it is. But I am certainly not going to let this get me down by playing into their fear.

[Fyrenza]

I think it's good to know what's going on, but at the same time all this doom and gloom can actually serve as a form of psychological warfare, to make people feel demoralized and disillusioned. I think that is what they want, because when people feel powerless they often turn to the state for help. There is no doubt things are bad -- you know it and I know it. I also think there is no chance at this point of the people doing anything to stop what is happening. The public is too brainwashed and most people will laugh at the truth no matter how obvious it is. But I am certainly not going to let this get me down by playing into their fear.

If you're speaking about what Bezmenov was talking about,

it's already too late to be concerned about the Demoralization part of the plan.

Seems like it took them a bit longer than they had anticipated, but [Cripes!] it looks like it's happening, all around us.

i have to believe that we can still do something, though i DO admit that i have no idea just what...

[Pressed_Rat]

Well, yeah. I should have said further demoralization... as if that is even possible.

If you're speaking about what Bezmenov was talking about,

it's already too late to be concerned about the Demoralization part of the plan.

Seems like it took them a bit longer than they had anticipated, but [Cripes!] it looks like it's happening, all around us.

i have to believe that we can still do something, though i DO admit that i have no idea just what...

[Fyrenza]

Well, yeah. I should have said further demoralization... as if that is even possible.

Well, we aren't totally demoralized, yet,

so it would be possible,

but considering who we are,

it's more than a little improbable. ;)

[hippiehillbilly]

I think it's good to know what's going on, but at the same time all this doom and gloom can actually serve as a form of psychological warfare, to make people feel demoralized and disillusioned. .

but,but,fear mongering is my favorite pass time..:rolleyes:

this little ditty is outta the boston globe.:eek:
i guess its getting harder and harder to keep reality outta the main stream media.


It's not quite yet time to head for the hills, but start preparing for it right now (http://www.boston.com/business/personalfinance/articles/2009/02/05/its_not_quite_yet_time_to_head_for_the_hills_but_s tart_preparing_for_it_right_now/)


By now, having watched your house fall in value, your 401(k) plan slide toward nothingness, your job security wane, your benefits fade, the complete failure of business management, the disastrous failure of regulatory control, the finger-pointing of the political parties, and the revelation of an epic $50 billion fraud, none of us could be blamed if we wanted to move to Montana and shun human beings.

So here's the big question. What can we do to feel safe again?

Should we push the politicians for fundamental reform?

No way. They simply aren't qualified to provide it. Neither party has shown any willingness to stop promising benefits that have to be paid for by our children and grandchildren. Their Ponzi schemes, more politely known as Social Security and Medicare, are far larger than the alleged fraud of Bernard Madoff.

It won't be easy, but here are some basic steps.
Go for cash. We can't pressure the politicians if we're as debt-strapped as they've made the country. We need to do whatever it takes to eliminate the menace of credit card debt. We should make it a goal to pay all of our bills in full monthly and build enough equity in our homes that we can self-finance most outsize expenses. That means the end of a debt-driven consumer society.

Our belt-tightening (read: lower standard of living) may last as long as five years.

The lending industry won't like this. We may owe them money, but we don't owe them any consideration.

Be prepared. Most of us suffer from a misplaced trust that the world is a place of civility and continuity. It isn't. We need to keep a cash reserve large enough that we don't worry at every economic hiccup. As a practical matter, even if your cash reserve earns zero interest, it can produce an outsize return in smart, day-to-day purchases of used and bankruptcy sale goods.

Train yourself in self-reliance. Most Americans would be endangered if they lost their income for a month, their electricity for a week, or their access to a supermarket or gas station for a few days. We rediscover this in every major snowstorm or hurricane. We simply don't think about being able to sustain ourselves in our homes in the event of utility failures or worse.
If you don't know where to start, let me suggest "Just in Case: How to Be Self-Sufficient When the Unexpected Happens" (Storey Publishing, $17). Written by Kathy Harrison, the book covers the basics of emergency preparedness for staying at home, or having to leave home quickly, in an easy 230 pages.

Jack A. Spigarelli's "Crisis Preparedness Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide to Home Storage and Physical Survival" (Cross-Current Publishing, $20), goes further. It includes a brief section on firearms and ammunition.
Scott Burns is a syndicated columnist. He can be reached scott@scottburns.com.http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/File-Based_Image_Resource/dingbat_story_end_icon.gif
© Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company.

[Fyrenza]

And THEY're recommending Survival books for the public?!?!?!?!?

WHOA!!!

[Fyrenza]

i want to lay-in a reserve of herb, and canned/jarred goods;

and i need to get my veggies going ~ i can do lettuce ALL YEAR long, in DRAWERS, like from a dresser!;

get a stock of (ugh!!! i hate this part...) rabbits and small herd animals;

ask my neighbor if he'd like to trade fresh veggies for pit bull time (they've got TWO! :eek: ) in OUR yard;

and get us some bicycles ~ for Gilligan's Island inventions, AND for transportation! :rofl:

[hippiehillbilly]

better hurry,we are living on borrowed time with this one..

its not if but when...

[hippiehillbilly]

Private capital may not be on board for bank bailout (http://www.reuters.com/article/bondsNews/idUSN0952978520090209)

Mon Feb 9, 2009 6:09pm EST

(For more Reuters DEALTALKS, click [DEALTALK/])

By Paritosh Bansal and Jennifer Ablan

NEW YORK, Feb 9 (Reuters) - The U.S. government may find buyout firms, hedge funds and other private investors reluctant to help it cleanse banks of toxic assets, hampering efforts to jumpstart the economy.

Private investors say they are waiting for the details of an Obama administration plan, to be unveiled on Tuesday, that is expected to include buying troubled assets from banks. But they worry about how the assets would be priced and what guarantees they would get against potential losses.

A further concern for investors is likely to be the government's track record on how it handled the first round of the $700 billion rescue for the industry, when it imposed restrictions on such things as dividends and compensation on banks that received taxpayer money.

"The aggregator bank is the right idea," said Whitney Tilson, founder of hedge fund T2 Partners LLC, referring to the plan to create a so-called 'bad bank' as a way to take toxic assets off the books. Even so, "the question is how do the assets get into the aggregator bank and right now investors are wondering is this (plan) going to be the same."

To lure in private investors, the bad bank could be allowed to issue debt backed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, a source familiar with the Obama administration's thinking told Reuters.

Overall estimates of the amount of assets a bad bank would have to buy have run to more than a trillion dollars and the government is counting on private capital to help revive the economy from its deepest slump in decades.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is looking for ways to use taxpayer funds to attract private investors, White House National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers told Fox News television on Sunday. But private capital could come at a cost to taxpayers.

"With the model under discussion now, the government is taking all of the downside beyond the initial payment that private investors made, while the investors get all of the upside," said Dan Alpert, managing director and investment banker at boutique bank Westwood Capital.

PRICE IS RIGHT?

Banks want the government to buy distressed assets, but the administration has struggled with pricing the assets in a way that helps the banks while being fair to taxpayers.

"If the prices are deemed too high, then the private sector will not bid aggressively for the assets and will show only a modest interest -- in essence to wave the flag," said Tom Sowanick, chief investment officer for $22 billion in assets at Clearbrook Financial LLC.

The government could sweeten the deal by providing guarantees that protect investors from losses and help in determining the price of those assets. But if guarantees are set too high, taxpayers could lose out and if they are too low, investors might not bite.

"It's such a black hole right now. Nobody knows how to price these toxic assets," said Paul Homsy, a principal at Crescent Asset Management. "If they put a floor on these assets, it might be something attractive."

The government may also have to consider further incentives such as providing financing when private firms cannot easily get debt elsewhere.

In July, Merrill Lynch agreed to sell $30.6 billion of collateralized debt obligations to buyout firm Lone Star for $6.7 billion, or about 22 cents on the dollar. But the investment bank, which is now part of Bank of America Corp (BAC.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), also agreed to finance about 75 percent of the purchase price.

"In essence, presumably the plan is to be designed so that private capital will reengage with the banks and allow us to start moving forward constructively," said Tad Rivelle, founding partner and chief investment officer at Metropolitan West Asset Management LLC. "So (the government) has to sort of establish what rules banks will be operating under a go-forward and how the claims at various levels at the banks will be treated." (Additional reporting by Dan Wilchins; Editing by Andre Grenon) (For more M&A news and our DealZone blog, go to www.reuters.com/deals (http://www.reuters.com/deals))

[hippiehillbilly]

http://picayune.uclick.com/comics/td/2009/td090207.gif

[hippiehillbilly]

The Growing Army of Angry Men Whose Lives Have Been Destroyed by the Federal Government (http://www.lewrockwell.com/crovelli/crovelli23.html)

by Mark R. Crovelli (Mark.Crovelli@gmail.com)

One of the hardest things to deal with in the current economic depression is the disgusting hypocrisy of the U.S. congress, the new president, and the members of the Federal Reserve System. It is one thing to be told, as we all are, that we must hand over fat wads of our hard-earned money to these warmongering and thieving snakes or face jail terms, but one feels a whole new level of revulsion when these people make statements to the effect that they, and they alone, are in a position to "save the economy" by "creating jobs." These statements are made by people who have done virtually everything in their power to destroy the American economy over the last few decades, but who have now proclaimed themselves to be our saviors. Only the most naïve and unlearned among us could possibly be falling for the idea that a bunch of self-serving politicians, bureaucrats and bankers are going to "save" us from problems they have caused.


On its face, the idea that politicians, bureaucrats, and bankers could "save" the economy is laughable. These are people, after all, who live exclusively at our expense. That is, these are people whose entire livelihoods are dependent upon taking money away from productive people and spending it on themselves and their favorite wasteful projects. It's true that they do not all share the same ideas about how to spend the money they take from us. Some prefer to use it to blow up innocent people in foreign lands, while others simply want to take our hard-earned money without our consent and hand it over to other people. The bankers, on the other hand, merely content themselves with printing vast amounts of new money out of thin air that they either hand over to the Treasury Department, or gift to their other banker-buddies to lend out at a profit at our expense. Nevertheless, it should be crystal clear that these people do not actually produce anything themselves (except the bankers, who are very skilled counterfeiters of money (http://mises.org/Books/mysteryofbanking.pdf)). They take money from us through taxation and inflation, (and threaten us with severe punishments if we refuse to obey), and then spend every last penny of it – and more (http://perotcharts.com/category/challenges-charts/page/4/) – on war, socialized boondoggles, and welfare. These are the people who would have us believe that they can "save" the economy? How exactly would they accomplish such a thing? More taxes, more idiotic socialized projects, more war, and more newly-printed green paper? Do these actions really seem likely to produce a vibrant and healthy economy, or do they seem more like the actions undertaken by the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R.?



They would also very much like for us to believe that they are the only people in the world capable of "creating jobs" in the United States. A more ridiculous idea would be hard to find. Again, these people are only in the business of taking money from productive people, and either wasting it entirely (e.g., war), keeping it themselves, or giving it to other people (e.g., entitlement programs, foreign aid, and paychecks for bureaucrats). As such, any actions undertaken by these people will necessarily depend for funding upon those who are forced to pay taxes; namely, the increasingly-dwindling group of productive people who have not yet lost their jobs in the private sector. Does it really seem possible that this sort of parasitism on the productive people of the United States really can create jobs that produce the things that people actually want (http://mises.org/econcalc.asp)? If socialized job creation is the only way out of this economic quagmire, as the politicians would have us believe, then why don't they socialize the entire economy? If it were indeed the case that the federal government can "create" productive jobs better than the private sector, then why don't they take over all aspects of the American economy, and we can all live happily ever-after in a brave, new, socialized America where everyone is enslaved, I mean employed, by the State.



And don't think for a moment that the politicians and bureaucrats are themselves going to help the productive people shoulder this onerous tax burden. On the contrary, politicians and bureaucrats do not actually pay taxes. As Murray Rothbard has noted in this regard (http://mises.org/rothbard/mes.asp):


"If a bureaucrat receives a salary of $5,000 a year and pays $1,000 in 'taxes' to the government, it is quite obvious that he is simply receiving a salary of $4,000 and pays no taxes at all. The heads of the government have simply chosen a complex and misleading accounting device to make it appear that he pays taxes in the same way as any other men making the same income. The UN's arrangement, whereby all its employees are exempt from any income taxation, is far more candid."
Hence, while Mr. Obama is fond of telling us that "we" are going to have to get out of this recession together, what he really means is that those of us who are employed in productive private lines of work in this country are going to have to hand over more and more of our hard-earned money to those people in this country who pay no taxes at all; namely, men like Mr. Obama himself and the rest of the fat, parasitic political and bureaucratic class that infests this country.


Some of the more shameless of the political class in this country, or their academic lackeys (http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/19/bush-is-right-about-something/), have even tried to convince us that the trillions of dollars they are wasting in Iraq and Afghanistan are going to help us get out of this depression. They have been taking our money and blowing it up in these two dreadfully poor countries year after year, and they would like for us to believe that this senseless destruction of wealth is going to make us richer. Often known as "Military Keynesians," this group is perhaps more aptly described as the "kill ourselves rich" crowd. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that neither you nor I are made better off when the federal government steals our money, hands it over to Lockheed Martin (http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/archive/media/2007/20070116.pdf) to purchase bombs, and then uses those bombs to blow up Pakistani civilians (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-afghan-civilians25-2009jan25,0,1007256.story). The only people who benefit from this forceful expropriation of our money and indifferent murder are the merchants of death occupying lucrative posts at Lockheed, Blackwater (http://www.pacificfreepress.com/news/1/1692-blackwater-murder-with-impunity.html) and the Pentagon.



What the political and bureaucratic classes are actually accomplishing very well, however, is creating a veritable army of angry men whose lives have been destroyed by the federal government. Many have lost their jobs, thanks to the collapse of the largest artificial economic boom in American history – a boom that was directly caused by the actions of the federal government and the Fed. In addition, thanks to years of merciless and ceaseless money creation by the Fed, this army of men has found that their savings purchase fewer and fewer goods over time. This depreciation of the dollar will inexorably increase astronomically over the next few years as the massive amount of new money the Fed and treasury have already jointly printed (http://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/usfd/page3.pdf), and are planning to print over the coming months and years, floods the system.


This army of angry men has very little to be optimistic about in the near future. At best, they might be able to keep their present jobs in the private sector – shouldering a heavier and heavier portion of the tax burden that funds the congress and president's wars and socialization schemes, while the value of their savings continues to erode into dust. Those who have lost their jobs might be permitted to work on Mr. Obama's "public works" projects, and thereby become virtual slaves to the whims of the political and bureaucratic classes. Many others will simply find it easier to start sucking at the state's teat in the form of unemployment insurance or food stamps, et cetera, and thereby lose all respect for themselves. One thing is certain for every member of this army of angry men, though; every single one of them will now find it very difficult, if not impossible, to carve out a living for himself, on his own terms, and without being at the complete mercy of politicians, bureaucrats, and bankers he has never even met. The age of the independent, responsible,and free American citizen is now dead.


The hour is fast approaching when each and every one of us will have to decide for ourselves whether we will try to fight this devastating government machine, or join it.
February 10, 2009

[hippiehillbilly]

Bank of America’s Bernstein Says Bank Plan Won’t Work :eek:
(http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aoc1E2sKjADk&refer=home)
By Lynn Thomasson

Feb. 11 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Treasury’s bank-rescue plan won’t repair the financial system or revive credit markets, Bank of America Corp. strategist Richard Bernstein said as he recommended avoiding the industry’s shares.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner pledged up to $2 trillion in government financing yesterday for programs aimed at spurring new lending and addressing mortgage assets that are difficult to value. The government’s prior measures to prop up financial institutions included backing $118 billion of Bank of America’s assets and injecting $45 billion into the Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank after it bought Merrill Lynch & Co.

“Financial stocks are likely to be as toxic to portfolio performance as banks’ assets are to their balance sheets,” New York-based Bernstein wrote in a research note. They plunged yesterday, driving the Standard & Poor’s 500 Financials Index to an 11 percent drop, on skepticism the rescue package will work.

Bernstein said the government should increase deposit insurance, seize assets, shut “large” banks and encourage takeovers.

“The history of bubbles clearly shows that the significant consolidation of the financial sector is inevitable,” the strategist wrote. “The latest Treasury program is simply another attempt to stymie the consolidation process.”

Financial shares in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index tumbled 57 percent last year, driving the benchmark index for U.S. stocks to the steepest annual retreat since 1937.

Lehman, Merrill Lynch

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., once the nation’s fourth biggest securities firm, filed the largest U.S. bankruptcy in September after its shares lost almost all their value. Its rivals Merrill Lynch & Co. and Bear Stearns Cos. were forced into takeovers to avoid collapse, while Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley converted to bank holding companies as investors lost confidence in firms that depend on debt-market financing. American International Group Inc., Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were taken over by the U.S. government.

Bernstein’s new employer, Bank of America, has plunged 57 percent in 2009. He had worked for New York-based Merrill Lynch since 1988.

Last Updated: February 11, 2009 16:23 EST

[Fyrenza]

Isn't Bloomberg considered MSM?... :eek:

[Fyrenza]

...
...
...


Oh, hey! And thanx for that "graphic illustration" ~ nice and easy to understand, and right on the money for the facts.

[hippiehillbilly]

Oh, hey! And thanx for that "graphic illustration" ~ nice and easy to understand, and right on the money for the facts.

i assume you mean the duck?? lol

[hippiehillbilly]

Will Obama Exploit the Unemployed as Recruits for a Ramped Up War in Afghanistan? (http://www.alternet.org/workplace/126319/will_obama_exploit_the_unemployed_as_recruits_for_ a_ramped_up_war_in_afghanistan/?page=entire)
By Paul Craig Roberts (http://www.alternet.org/authors/9128/), CounterPunch (http://www.counterpunch.org/). Posted February 11, 2009 (http://www.alternet.org/ts/archives/?date%5BF%5D=02&date%5BY%5D=2009&date%5Bd%5D=11&act=Go/).


Is there intelligent life in Washington, D.C.? Not a speck of it.


The U.S. economy is imploding, and President Barack Obama is being led by his government of neoconservatives and Israeli agents into a quagmire in Afghanistan that will bring the U.S. into confrontation with Russia, and possibly China, America's largest creditor.



The January payroll job figures reveal that last month, 20,000 Americans lost their jobs every day.



In addition, December's job losses were revised up by 53,000 from 524,000 to 577,000. The revision brings the two-month job loss to 1,175,000. If this keeps up, Obama's promised 3 million new jobs will be wiped out by job losses.


Statistician John Williams (shadowstats.com (http://www.shadowstats.com/)) reports that this huge number is an understatement. Williams notes that built-in biases in seasonal adjustment factors caused a 118,000 understatement of January job losses, bringing the actual January job loss total to 716,000 jobs.
The payroll survey counts the number of jobs, not the number of employed, because some people have more than one job. The Household Survey counts the number of people who have jobs, and it shows that 832,000 people lost their jobs in January and 806,000 in December, for a two-month count of Americans who lost jobs at 1,638,000.


The unemployment rate reported in the U.S. media is a fabrication. Williams reports that in changes since 1980, particularly in the Clinton era," 'Discouraged workers' -- those who had given up looking for a job because there were no jobs to be had -- were redefined so as to be counted only if they had been 'discouraged' for less than a year. This time qualification defined away the bulk of the discouraged workers. Adding them back into the total unemployed, actual unemployment, [according to the unemployment rate methodology used in 1980] rose to 18 percent in January, from 17.5 percent in December."
In other words, without all the manipulations of the data, the U.S. unemployment rate is already at depression levels.


How could it be otherwise, given the enormous job losses from jobs sent overseas? It is impossible for a country to create jobs when its corporations are moving production for the American consumer market offshore. When they move the production offshore, they shift U.S. gross domestic product to other countries. The U.S. trade deficit over the past decade has reduced U.S. GDP by $1.5 trillion dollars. That is a lot of jobs.


I have been reporting for years that university graduates have had to take jobs as waitresses and bartenders. As over-indebted consumers lose their jobs, they will visit restaurants and bars less frequently. Consequently, those with university degrees will not even have jobs waiting on tables and mixing drinks.


U.S. policymakers have ignored the fact that consumer demand in the 21st century has been driven, not by increases in real income, but by increased consumer indebtedness. This fact makes it pointless to try to stimulate the economy by bailing out banks so that they can lend more to consumers. The American consumers have no more capacity to borrow.
With the decline in the values of their principal assets -- their homes -- with the destruction of half of their pension assets, and with joblessness facing them, Americans cannot and will not spend.
Why bail out GM and Citibank when the firms are moving as many operations offshore as they possibly can?


Much of U.S. infrastructure is in poor shape and needs renewing. However, infrastructure jobs do not produce goods and services that can be sold abroad.


The massive commitment to infrastructure does nothing to help the U.S. reduce its huge trade deficit, the financing of which is becoming a major problem. Moreover, when the infrastructure projects are completed, so are the jobs.


At best, assuming Latino immigrants do not get most of the construction jobs, all Obama's stimulus program can do is to reduce the number of unemployed temporarily.


Unless U.S. corporations can be required to use American labor to produce the goods and services that they sell in American markets, there is no hope for the U.S. economy. No one in the Obama administration has the wits to address this problem. Thus, the economy will continue to implode.
Adding to the brewing disaster, Obama has been deceived by his military and neoconservative advisors into expanding the war in Afghanistan, a large, mountainous country.


Obama intends to use the draw-down of troops in Iraq to send 30,000 more to Afghanistan. This would bring the U.S. forces to 60,000 -- 600,000 fewer than Marine Corps and Army counterinsurgency guidelines define as the minimum number necessary to bring success in Afghanistan -- and less than half as many that was unable to occupy Iraq.


The Iranians had to bail out the Bush regime by restraining its Shiite allies and encouraging them to use the ballot box to attain power and push out the Americans.


In Iraq, the U.S. troops only had to fight a small Sunni insurgency drawn from a minority of the population. Even so, the U.S. "prevailed" by putting the insurgents on the U.S. payroll and paying them not to fight. The withdrawal agreement was dictated by the Shiites. It was not what the Bush regime wanted.


One would think that the experience with the "cakewalk" in Iraq would make the U.S. hesitant to attempt to occupy Afghanistan, an undertaking that would require the U.S. to occupy parts of Pakistan.


The U.S. was hard-pressed to maintain 150,000 troops in Iraq. Where is Obama going to get a half-million more to add to the 150,000 to pacify Afghanistan?


One answer is the rapidly growing massive U.S. unemployment. Americans will sign up to go kill abroad rather than be homeless and hungry at home.
But this solves only half of the problem. Where does the money come from to support troops in the field of 650,000, 4.3 times larger than U.S. forces in Iraq, a war that has cost us $3 trillion in out-of-pocket and already incurred future costs?


This money would have to be raised in addition to the $3 trillion U.S. budget deficit that is the result of Bush's financial sector bailout, Obama's stimulus package and the rapidly failing economy.


When economies tank, as the American one is doing, tax revenues collapse. The millions of unemployed Americans are not paying Social Security, Medicare and income taxes. The stores and businesses that are closing are not paying federal and state income taxes. Consumers with no money or credit to spend are not paying sales taxes.


The Washington Morons, and morons they are, have given no thought as to how they are going to finance a fiscal year 2009 budget deficit of some $2 trillion to $3 trillion.



The U.S. government really has only two possibilities for financing its budget deficit. One is a second collapse in the stock market, which would drive the surviving investors with what they have left into "safe" U.S. Treasury bonds. The other is for the Federal Reserve to monetize the Treasury debt.


"Monetizing the debt" means that when no one is willing or able to purchase the Treasury's bonds, the Federal Reserve buys them by creating bank deposits for the Treasury's account.


In other words, the Fed "prints money" with which to buy the Treasury's bonds. Once this happens, the dollar will cease to be the reserve currency.
In addition, China, Japan and Saudi Arabia, countries that hold enormous quantities of U.S. Treasury debt, in addition to other U.S. dollar assets, will sell, hoping to get out before others. The dollar will become worthless, the currency of a banana republic.


The U.S. will not be able to pay for its imports, a serious problem for a country dependent on imports for its energy, manufactured goods and advanced-technology products.


Obama's Keynesian advisors have learned with a vengeance Milton Friedman's lesson that the Great Depression resulted from the Federal Reserve permitting a contraction of the supply of money and credit.
In the Great Depression, good debts were destroyed by monetary contraction. Today, bad debts are being preserved by the expansion of money and credit, and the U.S. Treasury is jeopardizing its credit standing and the dollar's reserve-currency status with enormous quarterly bond auctions as far as the eye can see.


Meanwhile, the Russians, overflowing with energy and mineral resources, and not in debt, have learned that the U.S. government is not to be trusted. Russia has watched Reagan's successors attempt to turn former constituent parts of the Soviet Union into U.S. puppet states with U.S. military bases. The U.S. is trying to ring Russia with missiles that neutralize Russia's strategic deterrent.


Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has caught on to "comrade wolf." He has succeeded in having the president of Kyrgyzstan, a former part of the Soviet Union, evict the U.S. from its military base. This base is essential to America's ability to supply its troops in Afghanistan.


To stop America's meddling in its sphere of influence, the Russian government has created a collective security treaty organization comprising Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Uzbekistan is a partial participant.


In other words, Russia has organized Central Asia against U.S. penetration.
To whose agenda is President Obama being hitched? Writing in the English-language version of the Swiss newspaper, Zeit-Fragen, Stephen J. Sniegoski reports that leading figures of the neocon conspiracy -- Richard Perle, Max Boot, David Brooks and Mona Charen -- are ecstatic over Obama's appointments. They don't see any difference between Obama and Bush/Cheney.


Not only are Obama's appointments moving him into an expanded war in Afghanistan, but the powerful Israel lobby is pushing Obama toward a war with Iran.


The unreality in which he U.S. government operates is beyond belief. A financially bankrupt government that cannot pay its bills without printing money is rushing headlong into wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran.
According to the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Analysis, the cost to the U.S. taxpayers of sending a single soldier to fight in Afghanistan or Iraq is $775,000 per year!


Obama's war in Afghanistan is the Mad Hatter's Tea Party. After seven years of conflict, there is still no defined mission or endgame scenario for U.S. forces in Afghanistan.


When asked about the mission, a military official told NBC News, "Frankly, we don't have one." NBC reports: "They're working on it."
Speaking to House Democrats on Feb. 5, Obama admitted that the government does not know what its mission is in Afghanistan and that to avoid "mission creep without clear parameters," the U.S. needs a clear mission.


How would you like to be sent to a war, the point of which no one knows, including the commander in chief who sent you to kill or be killed? How, fellow taxpayers, do you like paying the enormous cost of sending service members on an undefined mission while the economy collapses?

[hippiehillbilly]

this one is a long one so i am not going to post anything but the link..
if your looking for your daily dose of doom and gloom,i think you will find a ample supply in the article..

Diluted to Oblivion, Dead Banks (http://www.321gold.com/editorials/willie/willie021309.html)

[hippiehillbilly]

Democrat Staffer: "They're Just People" (http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/267226)

On Friday the 13 of February 2009 both houses of the US Congress passed the largest spending bill in the history of our nation. The final amount of the bill is reported to be $787 Billion.

Congressional staffers have been inundated with calls, emails, and faxes by Americans responding to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, otherwise known as the Stimulus Bill. The voters contacting Washington, DC have voiced clearly that they are against this bill for the past two weeks.

Congressman Dr Broun of Georgia left Washington, DC Friday evening and caught a flight home. Once he landed at the Atlanta airport, the Congressman called into the Dontgo Movement radio program on the Heading Right Station of Blog Talk Radio. During his conversation with host Willie Lawson, Congressman Broun shared a conversation he had with a lobbyist in his office earlier that day.

The Lobbyist had just left the office of a fellow Democrat Congressman. During his visit in that office the staffers had admitted that they had received a high volume of calls, and they were overwhelmingly against the Stimulus Bill. The Democrat Congressman staffer’s response was, “oh, their just people.” “Can you imagine that?” Broun asked, “How arrogant is that? How elitist is that? Their just people. In other words, that’s the philosophy that Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats in Congress have today, is that we’re just people. They know better what we need than we do. It’s an outrage, it’s absolutely an outrage.”

During the same program, Congressman Shaddegg of Arizona shared details of the bill and frustration over the process involved in the writing of the bill. Shaddegg discussed in length the issue of $1.1 Billion allocated to do Comparative Effectiveness Research, which he described as “a massive study by the government to decide which medical procedures and treatments, and which prescription drugs the government will allow people who are on government paid for health care have and which medical procedures and treatments, or which prescription drugs the government will say, ‘No, I’m sorry. We don’t deem that to be worthwhile, so you don’t get that drug even though you and your doctor believe you desperately need it; or you don’t get that procedure even though you and your treating physician believe it may save your life.”

Shaddegg went on to say that 63 different patient advocacy groups contacted Pelosi and expressed concern over this portion of the bill, asking her to take the language out, but she refused. Congressman Obey of Wisconsin put the language in the bill and claimed today on CSPAN that this language will be used exactly for the reason of deciding what patients are worthy of what treatments.

[hippiehillbilly]

The Peron pattern (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/feb/15/the-peron-pattern/)

America is heading down the road to socialism - and ruin.

Numerous proposals have been enacted to reverse the economic downturn. First, in the spring of 2008 came the $180 billion stimulus program. Then, the 2008 summer $345 billion housing bailout. This was followed by the 2008 fall $700 billion bailout of Wall Street.

Now, the House and Senate have passed a nearly $800 billion stimulus package. Hence, more than $2 trillion will have been spent in a futile attempt to revive the economy.

We are imposing upon our children and grandchildren the burdensome costs of our addiction to big government. And this doesn't even take into account Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's plan for the taxpayer to absorb another $2 trillion to $4 trillion in debt to clean up the financial system. In other words, America is being buried under a mountain of debt - a debt that will trigger soaring inflation, crushing taxes and high interest rates. This is a recipe for economic disaster.

President Obama is playing Franklin D. Roosevelt to George W. Bush's Herbert Hoover. In the 1930s, it was FDR who expanded his New Deal liberalism from the activist policies of Hoover. Mr. Obama is building upon the massive budget deficits and reckless government spending of the Bush administration. Unlike Mr. Bush, however, Mr. Obama is shrewdly erecting an enduring majority electoral coalition - just as FDR did.

The stimulus plan has something for every important Democratic special interest group - labor, the teachers unions, big-city bosses, environmentalists, Hispanics, and African-Americans. Key constituencies will benefit from school construction, infrastructure projects, public works, retooling federal buildings with green technologies, expanding Medicaid and unemployment insurance, and more money for strapped states and localities. The plan is primarily designed not to stimulate the economy, but the size and scope of government. More citizens will be dependent upon government largesse. This empowers the Democratic Party and its liberal elite.

As National Review's Jonah Goldberg has rightly noted, modern American liberalism is a form of fascism - otherwise known as national socialism.(Can anyone say NAZI? :rolleyes:)

Its goal is to establish a centralized corporatist state, in which a ruling class manages to transfer power from the private to the public sector.

Liberalism champions huge entitlements, expensive social programs and the regimentation of nearly every aspect of people's lives - from smoking bans and university admissions policies, to prayer in schools and how much right-wing talk-radio one can listen to. It seeks to dominate not only politics and the economy, but culture and the arts as well.

Liberalism fuses statism with class-based populism. It is perpetually at war against some perceived national enemy, whether it be the "rich," conservative Republicans or traditional Christians. It designates an entire group of people - in America, it is unborn babies - as being less than fully human and lacking basic rights. It believes that politics, not religion, is the salvation of humanity. It constructs mass movements based on charismatic, messianic leaders, such as Woodrow Wilson, FDR, John F. Kennedy and Mr. Obama, bestowing upon them almost divine, saintly qualities. It is obsessed with using activist government in the service of social engineering. Since liberalism is consumed with power, it contains the seeds of its own destruction; it is the ideology of national suicide.

The disastrous path on which America is currently embarked was tried in another country - in the Western Hemisphere: Juan Peron's Argentina. During the 1940s until a 1955 coup ousted him from power, Peron presided over a fascist state.

What is not commonly known about Argentina is that prior to World War II, it was an economic powerhouse. Beginning in the 1880s and continuing through the 1920s and 1930s, it was regarded as one of the most prosperous and advanced nations in the world.

Argentina had a strong industrial base, thriving agricultural exports and a broad and expanding middle class. Like America, it served as a magnet for immigrants from all over the world, especially Italians. Within 15 years, however, Argentina went from being one of the richest to one of the poorest countries.

This was due largely to Peronist policies. Upon coming to office, Peron, along with his popular wife, Eva, established a corporatist state characterized by lavish social spending, elaborate welfare programs, protectionism, confiscatory taxation and runaway deficits.

Peron used strident class warfare rhetoric, attacking big business, the banks, corporations and the propertied class. He greatly strengthened labor unions, making them pivotal allies of his regime.

Peronism transformed the Argentine state. The bloated bureaucracy and massive government intervention fostered widespread corruption. Central economic planning destroyed productivity and growth. Investment capital fled. Inflation and interest rates soared. The middle class was wiped out. The independent judiciary was undermined and eventually smashed. The fawning media class became co-opted by Peron's allies. His -and Eva's - cult of personality fostered a climate of violence and political persecution of the regime's enemies. Argentina degenerated into the Latin American basket case that it is today.

The failure of Peronism should serve as a warning: Socialism and a sky-rocketing national debt can permanently impoverish even the wealthiest nations. America is not immune from the laws of economics. Prosperous republics - ancient Rome, the Italian city-states, Argentina - have seen their wealth squandered, never to recover.

Mr. Obama is taking the first dangerous steps toward an American version of Peronism. His followers see him as a political messiah, a revolutionary change agent who will foster national cohesion and unity. He and the Democrats are plundering the state, using it as a vehicle to reward supporters (and punish foes). He is our Dear Leader, whose image is everywhere from magazine covers to T-shirts to baseball caps. His wife, Michelle, is the Eva Peron of our time - glamorous, chic, a fashion trend-setter who is beloved by the media.

Most ominously, Mr. Obama is repeating the statist populism that didn't work in Argentina, and will not work in America. Professor Philip Jenkins wryly observes that the United States of America risks becoming "the United States of Argentina." He is right.

Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.

[hippiehillbilly]

DOCTRINE TO SILENCE "UNBALANCED RADIO AND WEB SITES" (http://spectator.org/archives/2009/02/16/in-all-fairness)


Senior FCC staff working for acting Federal Communications Commissioner Michael Copps held meetings last week with policy and legislative advisers to House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman to discuss ways the committee can create openings for the FCC to put in place a form of the "Fairness Doctrine" without actually calling it such.

Waxman is also interested, say sources, in looking at how the Internet is being used for content and free speech purposes. "It's all about diversity in media," says a House Energy staffer, familiar with the meetings.

"Does one radio station or one station group control four of the five most powerful outlets in one community? Do four stations in one region carry Rush Limbaugh, and nothing else during the same time slot? Does one heavily trafficked Internet site present one side of an issue and not link to sites that present alternative views? These are some of the questions the chairman is thinking about right now, and we are going to have an FCC that will finally have the people in place to answer them."

Copps will remain acting chairman of the FCC until President Obama's nominee, Julius Genachowski, is confirmed, and Copps has been told by the White House not create "problems" for the incoming chairman by committing to issues or policy development before the Obama pick arrives.

But Copps has been a supporter of putting in place policies that would allow the federal government to have greater oversight over the content that TV and radio stations broadcast to the public, and both the FCC and Waxman are looking to licensing and renewal of licensing as a means of enforcing "Fairness Doctrine" type policies without actually using the hot-button term "Fairness Doctrine."

One idea Waxman's committee staff is looking at is a congressionally mandated policy that would require all TV and radio stations to have in place "advisory boards" that would act as watchdogs to ensure "community needs and opinions" are given fair treatment. Reports from those advisory boards would be used for license renewals and summaries would be reviewed at least annually by FCC staff.

Waxman and the FCC staff are also said to be looking at ways to ease the "consumer complaint" process, which could also be used along with the advisory boards.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee is also looking at how it can put in place policies that would allow it greater oversight of the Internet.

"Internet radio is becoming a big deal, and we're seeing that some web sites are able to control traffic and information, while other sites that may be of interest or use to citizens get limited traffic because of the way the people search and look for information," says on committee staffer. "We're at very early stages on this, but the chairman has made it clear that oversight of the Internet is one of his top priorities."

"This isn't just about Limbaugh or a local radio host most of us haven't heard about," says Democrat committee member. "The FCC and state and local governments also have oversight over the Internet lines and the cable and telecom companies that operate them. We want to get alternative views on radio and TV, but we also want to makes sure those alternative views are read, heard and seen online, which is becoming increasingly video and audio driven. Thanks to the stimulus package, we've established that broadband networks -- the Internet -- are critical, national infrastructure.

Also involved in "brainstorming" on "Fairness Doctrine and online monitoring has been the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, which has published studies pressing for the Fairness Doctrine, as well as the radical MoveOn.org, which has been speaking to committee staff about policies that would allow them to use their five to six million person database to mobilize complaints against radio, TV or online entities they perceive to be limiting free speech or limiting opinion.

[hippiehillbilly]

Federal obligations exceed world GDP (http://www.blacklistednews.com/news-3351-0-13-13--.html):eek:

Published on 02-16-2009

Jerome R. Corsi

As the Obama administration pushes through Congress its $800 billion deficit-spending economic stimulus plan, the American public is largely unaware that the true deficit of the federal government already is measured in trillions of dollars, and in fact its $65.5 trillion in total obligations exceeds the gross domestic product of the world.

The total U.S. obligations, including Social Security and Medicare benefits to be paid in the future, effectively have placed the U.S. government in bankruptcy, even before new continuing social welfare obligation embedded in the massive spending plan are taken into account.

The real 2008 federal budget deficit was $5.1 trillion, not the $455 billion previously reported by the Congressional Budget Office, according to the "2008 Financial Report of the United States Government" as released by the U.S. Department of Treasury.

The difference between the $455 billion "official" budget deficit numbers and the $5.1 trillion budget deficit cited by "2008 Financial Report of the United States Government" is that the official budget deficit is calculated on a cash basis, where all tax receipts, including Social Security tax receipts, are used to pay government liabilities as they occur.

But the numbers in the 2008 report are calculated on a GAAP basis ("Generally Accepted Accounting Practices") that include year-for-year changes in the net present value of unfunded liabilities in social insurance programs such as Social Security and Medicare.

Under cash accounting, the government makes no provision for future Social Security and Medicare benefits in the year in which those benefits accrue.

"As bad as 2008 was, the $455 billion budget deficit on a cash basis and the $5.1 trillion federal budget deficit on a GAAP accounting basis does not reflect any significant money [from] the financial bailout or Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, which was approved after the close of the fiscal year," economist John Williams, who publishes the Internet website Shadow Government Statistics, told WND.

Find out what's behind the chaos at the White House, in the No. 1 best-seller "Obama Nation"

"The Congressional Budget Office estimated the fiscal year 2009 budget deficit as being $1.2 trillion on a cash basis and that was before taking into consideration the full costs of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, before the cost of the Obama nearly $800 billion economic stimulus plan, or the cost of the second $350 billion in TARP funds, as well as all current bailouts being contemplated by the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve," he said.

"The federal government's deficit is hemorrhaging at a pace which threatens the viability of the financial system," Williams added. "The popularly reported 2009 [deficit] will clearly exceed $2 trillion on a cash basis and that full amount has to be funded by Treasury borrowing.

"It's not likely this will happen without the Federal Reserve acting as lender of last resort for the Treasury by buying Treasury debt and monetizing the debt," he said.

"Monetizing the debt" is a term used to signify that the Federal Reserve will be required simply to print cash to meet the Treasury debt obligations, acting in this capacity only because the Treasury cannot sell the huge of amount debt elsewhere.

The Treasury has been largely dependent upon foreign buyers, principally China and Japan and other major holders of U.S. dollar foreign exchange reserves, including OPEC buyers purchasing U.S. debt through London.

"The appetite of foreign buyers to purchase continued trillions of U.S. debt has become more questionable as the world has witnessed the rapid deterioration of the U.S. fiscal condition in the current financial crisis," Williams noted.

"Truthfully," Williams pointed out, "there is no Social Security 'lock-box.' There are no funds held in reserve today for Social Security and Medicare obligations that are earned each year. It's only a matter of time until the public realizes that the government is truly bankrupt and no taxes are being held in reserve to pay in the future the Social Security and Medicare benefits taxpayers are earning today."

Calculations from the "2008 Financial Report of the United States Government" also show that the GAAP negative net worth of the federal government has increased to $59.3 trillion while the total federal obligations under GAAP accounting now total $65.5 trillion.

The $65.5 trillion total federal obligations under GAAP accounting not only now exceed four times the U.S. gross domestic product, or GDP, the $65.5 trillion deficit exceeds total world GDP.

"In the seven years of GAAP reporting, we have seen an annual average deficit in excess of $4 trillion, which could not be possibly covered by any form of taxation," Williams argued.

"Shy of the government severely slashing social welfare programs, federal deficits of this magnitude are beyond any hope of containment, government or otherwise," he said.

"Put simply, there is no way the government can possibly pay for the level of social welfare benefits the federal government has promised unless the government simply prints cash and debases the currency, which the government will increasingly be doing this year," Williams said, explaining in more detail why he feels the government is now in the process of monetizing the federal debt.

"Social Security and Medicare must be shown as liabilities on the federal balance sheet in the year they accrue according to GAAP accounting," Williams argues. "To do otherwise is irresponsible, nothing more than an attempt to hide the painful truth from the American public. The public has a right to know just how bad off the federal government budget deficit situation really is, especially since the situation is rapidly spinning out of control.

"The federal government is bankrupt," Williams told WND. "In a post-Enron world, if the federal government were a corporation such as General Motors, the president and senior Treasury officers would be in federal penitentiary."

[hippiehillbilly]

Bad News From America’s Top Spy (http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090216_bad_news_from_americas_top_spy)


By Chris Hedges (http://www.truthdig.com/about/staff/70)

(http://www.truthdig.com/about/staff/70)
We have a remarkable ability to create our own monsters. A few decades of meddling in the Middle East with our Israeli doppelgänger and we get Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Qaida, the Iraqi resistance movement and a resurgent Taliban. Now we trash the world economy and destroy the ecosystem and sit back to watch our handiwork. Hints of our brave new world seeped out Thursday when Washington’s new director of national intelligence, retired Adm. Dennis Blair, testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee. He warned that the deepening economic crisis posed perhaps our gravest threat to stability and national security. It could trigger, he said, a return to the “violent extremism” of the 1920s and 1930s.


It turns out that Wall Street, rather than Islamic jihad, has produced our most dangerous terrorists. You wouldn’t know this from the Obama administration, which seems hellbent on draining the blood out of the body politic and transfusing it into the corpse of our financial system. But by the time Barack Obama is done all we will be left with is a corpse—a corpse and no blood.:eek::smilielol5: And then what? We will see accelerated plant and retail closures, inflation, an epidemic of bankruptcies, new rounds of foreclosures, bread lines, unemployment surpassing the levels of the Great Depression and, as Blair fears, social upheaval.



The United Nations’ International Labor Organization estimates that some 50 million workers will lose their jobs worldwide this year. The collapse has already seen 3.6 million lost jobs in the United States. The International Monetary Fund’s prediction (http://eetimes.eu/germany/212903044) for global economic growth in 2009 is 0.5 percent—the worst since World War II. There are 2.3 million properties in the United States that received a default notice or were repossessed last year. And this number is set to rise in 2009, especially as vacant commercial real estate begins to be foreclosed. About 20,000 major global banks collapsed, were sold or were nationalized in 2008. There are an estimated 62,000 U.S. companies expected to shut down this year. Unemployment, when you add people no longer looking for jobs and part-time workers who cannot find full-time employment, is close to 14 percent.



And we have few tools left to dig our way out. The manufacturing sector in the United States has been destroyed by globalization. Consumers, thanks to credit card companies and easy lines of credit, are $14 trillion in debt. The government has pledged trillions toward the crisis, most of it borrowed or printed in the form of new money. It is borrowing trillions more to fund our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. And no one states the obvious: We will never be able to pay these loans back. We are supposed to somehow spend our way out of the crisis and maintain our imperial project on credit. Let our kids worry about it. There is no coherent and realistic plan, one built around our severe limitations, to stanch the bleeding or ameliorate the mounting deprivations we will suffer as citizens. Contrast this with the national security state’s strategies to crush potential civil unrest and you get a glimpse of the future. It doesn’t look good.


“The primary near-term security concern of the United States is the global economic crisis and its geopolitical implications,” Blair told the Senate. “The crisis has been ongoing for over a year, and economists are divided over whether and when we could hit bottom. Some even fear that the recession could further deepen and reach the level of the Great Depression. Of course, all of us recall the dramatic political consequences wrought by the economic turmoil of the 1920s and 1930s in Europe, the instability, and high levels of violent extremism.”



The specter of social unrest was raised at the U.S. Army War College in November in a monograph (http://www.policypointers.org/Page/View/8519) [click on Policypointers’ pdf link to see the report] titled “Known Unknowns: Unconventional ‘Strategic Shocks’ in Defense Strategy Development.” The military must be prepared, the document warned, for a “violent, strategic dislocation inside the United States,” which could be provoked by “unforeseen economic collapse,” “purposeful domestic resistance,” “pervasive public health emergencies” or “loss of functioning political and legal order.” The “widespread civil violence,” the document said, “would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic domestic order and human security.”



“An American government and defense establishment lulled into complacency by a long-secure domestic order would be forced to rapidly divest some or most external security commitments in order to address rapidly expanding human insecurity at home,” it went on.


“Under the most extreme circumstances, this might include use of military force against hostile groups inside the United States. Further, DoD [the Department of Defense] would be, by necessity, an essential enabling hub for the continuity of political authority in a multi-state or nationwide civil conflict or disturbance,” the document read.



In plain English, something bureaucrats and the military seem incapable of employing, this translates into the imposition of martial law and a de facto government being run out of the Department of Defense. They are considering it. So should you.




Adm. Blair warned the Senate that “roughly a quarter of the countries in the world have already experienced low-level instability such as government changes because of the current slowdown.” He noted that the “bulk of anti-state demonstrations” internationally have been seen in Europe and the former Soviet Union, but this did not mean they could not spread to the United States. He told the senators that the collapse of the global financial system is “likely to produce a wave of economic crises in emerging market nations over the next year.” He added that “much of Latin America, former Soviet Union states and sub-Saharan Africa lack sufficient cash reserves, access to international aid or credit, or other coping mechanism.”


“When those growth rates go down, my gut tells me that there are going to be problems coming out of that, and we’re looking for that,” he said. He referred to “statistical modeling” showing that “economic crises increase the risk of regime-threatening instability if they persist over a one to two year period.”


Blair articulated the newest narrative of fear. As the economic unraveling accelerates we will be told it is not the bearded Islamic extremists, although those in power will drag them out of the Halloween closet when they need to give us an exotic shock, but instead the domestic riffraff, environmentalists, anarchists, unions and enraged members of our dispossessed working class who threaten us. Crime, as it always does in times of turmoil, will grow. Those who oppose the iron fist of the state security apparatus will be lumped together in slick, corporate news reports with the growing criminal underclass.



The committee’s Republican vice chairman, Sen. Christopher Bond of Missouri, not quite knowing what to make of Blair’s testimony, said he was concerned that Blair was making the “conditions in the country” and the global economic crisis “the primary focus of the intelligence community.”


The economic collapse has exposed the stupidity of our collective faith in a free market and the absurdity of an economy based on the goals of endless growth, consumption, borrowing and expansion. The ideology of unlimited growth failed to take into account the massive depletion of the world’s resources, from fossil fuels to clean water to fish stocks to erosion, as well as overpopulation, global warming and climate change. The huge international flows of unregulated capital have wrecked the global financial system. An overvalued dollar (which will soon deflate), wild tech, stock and housing financial bubbles, unchecked greed, the decimation of our manufacturing sector, the empowerment of an oligarchic class, the corruption of our political elite, the impoverishment of workers, a bloated military and defense budget and unrestrained credit binges have conspired to bring us down. The financial crisis will soon become a currency crisis. This second shock will threaten our financial viability. We let the market rule. Now we are paying for it.



The corporate thieves, those who insisted they be paid tens of millions of dollars because they were the best and the brightest, have been exposed as con artists. Our elected officials, along with the press, have been exposed as corrupt and spineless corporate lackeys. Our business schools and intellectual elite have been exposed as frauds. The age of the West has ended. Look to China. Laissez-faire capitalism has destroyed itself. It is time to dust off your copies of Marx.

[hippiehillbilly]

http://www.leap2020.eu/GEAB-N-32-is-available!-4th-quarter-2009-Beginning-of-Phase-5-of-the-global-systemic-crisis-phase-of-global-geopolitical_a2805.html?PHPSESSID=7f96eb3879649022 0a969131e624599e (http://www.leap2020.eu/GEAB-N-32-is-available%21-4th-quarter-2009-Beginning-of-Phase-5-of-the-global-systemic-crisis-phase-of-global-geopolitical_a2805.html?PHPSESSID=7f96eb3879649022 0a969131e624599e)


GEAB N°32 is available! 4th quarter 2009 – Beginning of Phase 5 of the global systemic crisis: phase of global geopolitical dislocation

- Public announcement GEAB N°32 (February 16, 2009) -

Back in February 2006, LEAP/E2020 estimated that the global systemic crisis would unfold in 4 main structural phases: trigger, acceleration, impact and decanting phases. This process enabled us to properly anticipate events until now. However our team has now come to the conclusion that, due to the global leaders’ incapacity to fully realise the scope of the ongoing crisis (made obvious by their determination to cure the consequences rather than the causes of this crisis), the global systemic crisis will enter a fifth phase in the fourth quarter of 2009, a phase of global geopolitical dislocation.
According to LEAP/E2020, this new stage of the crisis will be shaped by two major processes happening in two parallel sequences:

A. Two major processes:
1. Disappearance of the financial base (Dollar & Debt) all over the world
2. Fragmentation of the interests of the global system’s big players and blocks

B. Two parallel sequences:
1. Quick disintegration of the current international system altogether
2. Strategic dislocation of big global players.

We had hoped that the decanting phase would give the world’s leaders the opportunity to draw the proper conclusions from the collapse of the global system prevailing since WWII. Alas, at this stage, it is no longer possible to be optimistic in this regard (1). In the United States, as in Europe, China and Japan, leaders persist in reacting as if the global system has only fallen victim to some temporary breakdown, merely requiring loads of fuel (liquidities) and other ingredients (rate drops, repurchase of toxic assets, bailouts of semi-bankrupt industries,…) to reboot it. In fact (and this is what LEAP/E2020 means ever since February 2006 using the expression « global systemic crisis”), the global system is simply out of order; a new one needs to be built instead of striving to save what can no longer be saved.




http://www.leap2020.eu/photo/1237272-1612818.jpg?v=1234825360 (http://javascript%3cb%3e%3c/b%3E:void%280%29)
Orders in the manufacturing sector, Quarter 4 2008 (Japan, Eurozone, United Kingdom, China, India) - Sources : MarketOracle / JPMorgan

History is not known to be patient, therefore the fifth phase of the crisis will ignite this required process of reconstruction, but in a harsh manner: by means of a complete dislocation of the present system, with particularly tragic consequences in the case of several big global players, as described in this 32nd issue of the GEAB (see the two parallel sequences).

According to LEAP/E2020, there is only one very small launch window left to prevent this scenario from shaping up: the next four months, before summer 2009. Practically speaking, the April 2009 G20 Summit is probably the last chance to put on the right tracks the forces at play, i.e. before the sequence of UK and then US defaults begin (2). Failing which, they will lose their capacity to control events (3), including those in their own countries for many of them; and the world will enter this phase of geopolitical dislocation like a “drunken boat”. At the end of this phase of geopolitical dislocation, the world will look more like Europe in 1913 rather than our world in 2007.

Because they persisted in bearing the ever-increasing weight of the ongoing crisis, most states, including the most powerful ones, failed to realise that they were planning their own trampling under the weight of History, forgetting that they were merely man-made organisations, only surviving because they matched the interest of a large majority. In this 32nd edition of the GEAB, LEAP/E2020 has chosen to anticipate the fallout of this phase of geopolitical dislocation so far as it affects the United-States, EU, China and Russia.




http://www.leap2020.eu/photo/1237272-1612820.jpg?v=1234825015 (http://javascript%3cb%3e%3c/b%3E:void%280%29)
US Monetary base - (12/2002 – 12/2008 ) - Source US Federal Reserve / DollarDaze

It is high time for the general population and socio-political players to get ready to face very hard times during which whole segments of our societies will be modified (4), temporarily disappear or even permanently vanish. For instance, the breakdown of the global monetary system we anticipated for summer 2009 will indeed entail the collapse of the US dollar (and all USD-denominated assets), but it will also induce, out of psychological contagion, a general loss of confidence in paper money altogether (these consequences give rise to a number of recommendations in this issue of the GEAB).

Last but not least, our team now estimates that the most monolithic, the most « imperialistic » political entities (5) will suffer the most from this fifth phase of the crisis. Some states will indeed experience a strategic dislocation undermining their territorial integrity and their influence worldwide. As a consequence, other states will suddenly lose their protected situations and be thrust into regional chaos.

[zihger]

Bad News From America’s Top Spy (http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090216_bad_news_from_americas_top_spy)


By Chris Hedges (http://www.truthdig.com/about/staff/70)

(http://www.truthdig.com/about/staff/70)



Good read.

““When those growth rates go down, my gut tells me that there are going to be problems coming out of that, and we’re looking for that,” he said. He referred to “statistical modeling” showing that “economic crises increase the risk of regime-threatening instability if they persist over a one to two year period.”

This is a problem more then a coupe of years at 25%+ unemployment, yeah that’s the ingredients of government collapse for real..

Not sure who the great depression went through with so little unrest? Maybe the lack of total starvation? Or maybe just the times.

[hippiehillbilly]

call me a conspiracy nut (may as well,everyone else does :rolleyes: ) but im becoming convinced they are prodding us towards civil unrest.
there is just to much talk of it in the MSM to convince me otherwise..
i believe they want it to happen.

[hippiehillbilly]

http://www.financialsense.com/stormw...2009/0220.html (http://www.financialsense.com/stormwatch/geo/pastanalysis/2009/0220.html)
Why Not the Truth?
by J. R. Nyquist
Weekly Column Published: 02.20.2009

The truth will set you free. But freedom signifies responsibility, and who wants to be responsible? Ignorance, after all, is bliss – and bears no responsibility whatsoever. The most common excuse in any language is, “I didn’t know.” When they were gassing millions of Jews in Hitler’s Europe during the 1940s, how many were interested in the truth? With one voice, like the caricature of a German sergeant, we hear them cry: I know nothing! Oh, well, in that case, you can’t be held responsible. You are too stupid, by far, to take responsibility for anything. You are the perfect totalitarian drone, mindlessly goose-stepping with the Fuhrer’s legions. Millions stripped and killed by your fellow citizens? Not something you should have known about. And what of the mounds of jewelry stolen from the victims? I know nothing!

The truth is dangerous. Who will protect us from it? Our institutions will protect us: the state, the bureaucracy, the Congress, the Office of the President. The link between truth and responsibility here assumes tremendous importance. Those who evade responsibility must also evade the truth. Inevitably, they turn to the state. Let the state be responsible, they say. Let the state signify truth. This latter point they dare not make openly, for everyone would see – in a flash – the disaster they are incubating. It is the disaster of the state as savior. The flight from responsibility, as a corollary of the flight from truth, is the distilled essence of it. Is there a financial crash? Let the government prop up the market. Are people unable to pay their mortgages? The government will pay. Are banks in trouble? The government will bail them out. Why should anyone take responsibility for anything?

The mad dash to learn the truth is proclaimed on every side: at universities, on television, at major newspapers. One smells the fresh manure upon these fields. There is no desire to discover truth, but a desire for good grades and good ratings and millions sold. Who poses as a truth-teller in these settings? It is the professor who berates his country as “sexist, classist and racist.” It is the television pundit obsessed with his own celebrity. It is the newspaper editor who elegantly packages the great misconceptions of the day as news.

Then there is the language of self-deception, the language of the politically correct. In his book, 1984, George Orwell wrote about Newspeak, the official language of the totalitarian future: “The purpose of Newspeak was … to make all other modes of thought impossible.” This is accomplished by “eliminating undesirable words and stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings….” If people have no words to express a dangerous truth, they cannot arrive at this truth. According to Orwell, “[The] reduction of vocabulary was regarded as an end in itself, and no word that could be dispensed with was allowed to survive. Newspeak was designed not to extend but to diminish the range of thought, and this purpose was indirectly assisted by cutting the choice of words down to a minimum.”

Those who spend their lives watching the Idiot Box do not need the Newspeak Dictionary. Their vocabularies are automatically attenuated. They are ready to believe that government officials can save them. For example, they think the president can fix the country’s problems. He has the brains to accomplish miracles: to deliver us from penury through government spending. Meanwhile, the country leaps from the frying pan of deflation into the inflationary fire. It is called “a stimulus package.” It is the biggest white elephant ever sold, at the dearest price. If it doesn’t work, we’ll do it again, and again, as many times as it takes – or until the currency collapses. A stupefied country listens in suspense to those fateful words: “We are from the government, and we are here to help.” Euphemism is the native language of every bureaucrat. For them, loot is “revenue.” Waste is “progressive.” Propping failed industries is “a good investment.” Stopping a market correction is “saving the economy.” Every event is an excuse to spend money. If the economy is flush, spend money. If the economy is contracting, spend money. Do you want more golden eggs? Cook the goose that lays them. Everything is going to be okay!

“When words lose their meaning,” warned Confucius, “people will lose their liberty.” Watch the fanatic waving the “truth” like a tattered rag in everyone’s face. He is tomorrow’s Hitler spouting an ideology of hate. His day is coming. Look around and ask yourself who will stop the rise of the evil fanatic when the country goes off the rails. Will you be brave enough to speak out? Will you oppose the bloody revolution that is being prepared?

The truth has always been connected with suffering. This is famously celebrated in the world’s largest religion, Christianity. The world’s 2.1 billion Christians are taught to “pick up their crosses” in imitation of Christ. If Kierkegaard were alive today he would ask if anyone has sighted 2.1 billion crosses in the world. When Christ was interrogated before his execution, he told the Roman Prefect Pontius Pilate of Judaea that he came into the world to bear witness to the truth. The Roman dismissively asked, “What is truth?” For the benefit of Pilate and other government officials, the dictionary defines truth as: “the actual state of a matter; a verified indisputable fact, proposition, principle; the state or character of being true.”

The truth is seldom found during election campaigns, where slogans and catch-phrases reign supreme. Under democracy, majority opinion takes the place of truth. This leaves the field to pollsters and social science statisticians. Instead of Pontius Pilate cynically asking what truth could possibly be, polling firms tell us what everyone thinks it is. Here the pollster has put the word “average” and “think” into the same formula. Here an equal sign is placed between knowledge and ignorance, resulting in a statistic. As British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli once noted, “There are … lies, damned lies, and statistics.”

And then there is the point of last resort: the truth. We are destined to arrive there some day.

[hippiehillbilly]

It May Be The Winter Of Our Discontent... (http://ashizashiz.blogspot.com/2009/03/it-may-be-winter-of-our-discontent.html)


http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_-NKEBFeFvAU/SbLA7SyzX1I/AAAAAAAAArU/qzQYP6T8ZTk/s320/france_riots_day_2.jpg (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_-NKEBFeFvAU/SbLA7SyzX1I/AAAAAAAAArU/qzQYP6T8ZTk/s1600-h/france_riots_day_2.jpg)
...but it's the spring and summer that worry me. A Lot!

Look, how can I say this as gently and calmly as is possible:

WAKE UP!!! GET YOUR THINGS IN ORDER NOW!!!

Make sure you have access to food, water and shelter. Things are about to get really bad, really fast.

Here's the deal: When studying the history and sociology of economic collapse, one quickly comes to understand certain very important dynamics. These include, but are not limited to, the following five: lies, exponents, lag, panic & militancy. Let's briefly examine all FIVE:

LIES: Sure we know that "they" are lying about pretty much everything. No surprises there. But understand this---when the government reports 8.1% unemployment, they are (a) clearly under-reporting the numbers, (b) not accounting for the demographic component in such an estimation, and (c) reporting U3 numbers. So, what does this all mean? Well, for one thing it means that some parts of the country are already at or above 25% U6 unemployment. And if a large urban area is experiencing 25% unemployment, and if one thing "goes wrong" (one instance of police brutality, one dramatic bank closing, one instance of radical response to a foreclosure eviction), and if that one thing is captured on video and watched by tens of millions of other angry, unemployed people...well you get the picture.
EXPONENTS: Unemployment increases follow exponential, or algorithmic functions, vis-a-vis expansion. This is because for each unemployed individual, others whose lives, however discreetly or indirectly, are connected to this individual are also adversely impacted. And what begins as "adverse impact" quickly spirals into joblessness. A simple example: 60 lay offs at Dartmouth College last month (I was one) means that the sandwich and coffee shop closest to campus sees a decrease in revenue not only from the newly unemployed BUT ALSO from those who fear they are next! Soon the coffee shop is forced to lay off employees too, and the stress on the local economy continues to spiral out of control.
LAG: Lag time is a critical variable. It's kind of like a societal Doppler Effect. 15% U6 unemployment in February not only means 16.5% U6 unemployment in March, but more importantly it means that the IMPACT of such numbers does not hit most families and/or individuals for a few months. Most folks get severance packages, or have a little money stored up for a rainy day, etc. Those resources usually disappear within 2-3 months of one becoming unemployed. And once those resources are gone, that's it. AND, considering the FACT that most states' unemployment insurance funds are totally insolvent: A recipe for systemic implosion is born.
PANIC: Once "the RUN" begins, once the panic starts, it takes on its own life. Once the first video hits YouTube showing the windows of a local Price Chopper getting smashed, it's over. And that is coming sooner rather than later. It's already occurring all over Europe and Asia. Why the hell would we be immune?!!?
MILITANCY: Why do you think the Democrats and Mr. Obama birthed a bloated, ineffectual $800 Billion "stimulus" package? To stimulate growth??? C'mon! They know that it cannot save an economy that is literally tens of TRILLIONS of dollars in the hole. They created it to essentially pay off the most militant sectors of society. Regardless of your ideological predisposition, it is hard not to recognize that millions of unemployed UNION workers means millions of angry members of organized-labor in the streets. Do you think the government knows that GM is no longer a going concern??? Of course they do! But Mr. Obama is not about to watch millions of newly unemployed auto-workers march out of the factories and onto the picket lines. Combined with other forces ongoing in our crashing financial and social sectors, and this could be the straw that brings the nation to its knees.

Do you think I exaggerate? Take a couple of hours and go to my blog and find the "LINKS" in the right margin and click through and read articles and pieces and excerpts from each. Things are getting increasingly hairy for a whole lot of folks, and negative-event loops are accelerating at an extraordinary rate. It's actually quite spooky to now see the mainstream media beginning to panic---and it's about to get much, much worse. And here is the most critical point to take from this post: It only takes one event to catalyze the unwind: one Crispus Attucks, one Amritsar, one Sharpeville. And do you really think that the police are going to save the day for the government??? The police, who also find themselves at the very end of the financial rope???? We are teetering on the edge folks.

The key time frame obviously is between Memorial Day and Labor Day. The nation's summer "leisure" economy is going to fall right off of the cliff; the electric grid is going to be under more strain than it ever has before; the ability of state and federal governments to respond effectively to natural disasters (hurricanes, tornadoes, floods) that peak in late spring and summer is going to be substantially mitigated.

I tend not to be too alarmist. I don't enjoy "gloom-and-doom" orgies that, at times, predominate our conversations about the current economic state of affairs. As you know, I am in fact trying to do some mainstream organizing. I'm up in Montpelier, VT trying to affect policy change, and I am coordinating sustainability events in my town, etc. But y'know what? Right after I finish this post I'm going to the local gun shop and purchasing 250 more rounds for my .38.

Plan now for what increasingly seems to be inevitable:

The great societal meltdown of 2009.

[earthmother]

I'm hearin' ya loud and clear. We think in the same language... Seems this prediction of riots this summer is being pushed very hard...

Add to your list of nastys that here in WV there is a bill trying to be passed that says everyone has to get drug tested in order to get welfare, food stamps, or UNEMPLOYMENT benefits...
We already know that means an awful lot of people with some serious problems (and some with none) who would soon be without food and shelter...
Only thing is, stuff like this creates an underground culture that is even harder for "them" to control than what they already have. The system is it's own worst enemy. But this thing'll definitely separate the men from the boys before it's done.